


Mission Logs

by Melivian



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ben Hargreeves Deserves Better, Bittersweet, Child Soldiers, Coming of Age, Daddy Issues, Dramatic Irony, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Ensemble Cast, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Luther Hargreeves-centric, Minor Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves (implied), Mission Fic, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Superheroes, Unreliable Narrator, no Luther bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:29:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23471731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melivian/pseuds/Melivian
Summary: "And suddenly, the weight of it hits him.  They are not children anymore.  Every day, they are changing, becoming just a bit more twisted and hardened and jaded, until they all grow apart and leave each other behind."Selected missions throughout the Umbrella Academy's career as superheroes, as told (incorrectly) by Luther.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Luther Hargreeves & Everyone, Luther Hargreeves & Reginald Hargreeves
Comments: 135
Kudos: 111





	1. UMBRELLA ACADEMY MISSION #1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. So this is my first fanfic in about fifteen years, and my first for AO3 and The Umbrella Academy. About 60-70% done the entire thing, but I kept compulsively re-editing the first missions instead of making progress on the later ones. I also live in terror of Season 2 coming out tomorrow and making this whole fic non-canon. So I'm forcing myself to take the plunge and post the completed missions one at a time to light a fire under my ass.
> 
> This is not the first thing I've tried to write for this fandom, but it's the first I'm posting for two reasons: 1) I'm a contrarian who likes defending the characters everyone hates, and 2) younger me had a few cringy Luther tendencies, so some of these themes are personal to me. You might want to proceed with caution if you find it hard to read excuses for abusive or neglectful parenting. But my experience with Reginald types is that they have just enough good parts to make the Luthers of the world stay.

**BRIEFING:**

The courtyard at dawn glows with a rosy newborn sheen. In the shadow of the oak tree, Luther stands next to his father, whose eyes are focused upon some point in the distance. He watches Father, studying every crease in his face for hidden meaning, and wonders if he feels what Luther is feeling.

“This used to be an umbrella factory,” says Father. “It was so small that I needed to squeeze past the lathes and mills to get to my desk. Everything you see past that fountain was outside the building.” A thin smile flits across his face. “It feels like another life now. I suppose it was, in a way. Peculiar, how much a world can change.”

After today, nothing will be the same. Maybe there will be other sunrises in this courtyard with his father, but Luther will be a different person then. Together they're on the cusp of a beginning—or an ending.

“Will I die today?” Luther asks, in a small voice.

The hand on his shoulder is bracing.

“You are my Number One for a reason,” says Father. “I have faith you won't die anytime soon. I wouldn't send you otherwise.”

Luther basks in those words like a cat in a sunbeam. He is the tallest of his siblings, the ordained leader, but even so, there are days he feels small. A suit of armour called Number One was forged for Luther years ago, and he's spent his life preparing to become strong enough to wear it. Now that the moment to shoulder the burden has come, he does not feel ready. But he wants to be.

“Go inside, my boy,” says his father. “You should prepare for the mission.”

As he heads inside the mansion, he tries to imagine what Dad—Father, he corrects—would feel if something happened to Luther, to any of them. Luther knows how much time and money and energy his father has sunk into making the children what they are. If Luther were to squander that investment today, he would be a bad son.

Instead of eggs and bacon, the kitchen table is laden with granola, yogourt, and berries. Lighter meals, Luther has been told, are less likely to be vomited up in the heat of battle from nerves or overexertion. Mom's programming is conscientious that way. “Hurry up and eat, sweetie!” she says when she sees him. “You need your energy for your big day.”

Allison smiles at Luther as he sits down. Breakfast in the kitchen at seven-thirty AM, same as every day. His eyes scan the faces of his brothers and sisters. They are sitting in their assigned positions around the table. Klaus is chattering away, moving his hands with jittery animation. Diego and Allison laugh, a bit too loudly. This could be any morning in Sir Reginald's household. But then he notices that aside from Vanya's, all of their forks and spoons are resting perfectly still by their plates, right where Mom laid them when she set the table. Vanya is morose and chewing her granola as though she is dragging a boulder up a hill. No one else is touching their food.

“I bet you I can kill the most bad guys today,” says Diego. In his left hand is his favourite action figure, a plastic pirate covered in scratches. In his right is a serrated knife. Fake targets and real weapons.

“We don't need to kill anyone,” says Allison. There is a glint in her eyes. “We can ask them nicely to stop.”

“You can't be in that many places at once,” says Five.

“They're bad guys,” says Luther firmly, because he wants the matter settled. “We don't want to hurt innocent people, but like Father says, it's okay if they deserve it.”

Ben draws figure eights in his yogourt. There are dark circles under his eyes. “Sure,” he says. “Whatever.”

“Wow, you're all so optimistic,” says Klaus. He lets out a nervous laugh. “Everyone's assuming that we'll be the ones doing the killing.”

No one responds.

Luther has only eaten a few bites when the siren goes off.

An electric current passes through Numbers One through Six. In that moment, they become a single organism. They all stand at once and slip on their domino masks.

“Well,” says Luther, with a shiver, “it's time to go."

**THE MISSION:**

Everything goes off without a hitch.

He climbs the roof with Two, Four, and Six. Five will teleport into the building as surprise reinforcements once they are inside. It was mostly Father's plan, but One threw in a few suggestions. One day, he's been told, Number One will be coming up with his own tactics.

Allison has already infiltrated the bank alone, and Luther's stomach twists in knots on her behalf.

Before she left, she squeezed his hand and whispered in his ear, “You've got this.”

Then she was gone. Now they stay frozen on the roof, bodies pressed against the concrete. Waiting is the worst part. Things are in motion now, and it is all outside of Luther's control. He feels his hand trembling, tries to steady it. Then he looks at his brothers. He sees Diego pressing his lips together and drumming his fingers on his knee and Klaus white as a sheet and fiddling with the buttons of his uniform and Ben taking in quick, sharp breaths and clutching his sides. Luther thinks, I'm the leader, I have to be strong for them. So he forces himself to flash a confident grin and whisper, “I'll go in first.”

When he hears the gunshot, his blood turns to ice.

Then he acts. He smashes through the skylight. No time to analyze. When he lands, he skids in something slippery all over the floor—blood. For a moment, his heart skips, but then he realizes the blood is not Allison's. One of the bank robbers is clutching his foot and screaming in pain. Allison is watching her handiwork with a naughty smile. It looks to Luther like she didn't ask all that nicely in the end.

Adrenaline shoots through him. He acts on instinct, tearing through the robbers. They crumple like paper at his touch. This is easy. As he tosses them around like rag dolls, he feels like it is all happening to someone else. They hit the wall with a sickening crack, but it does not sink in. Number One has done this hundreds of times to training dummies.

The last of them stops moving, and Luther comes back to his own body.

After Ben finishes up in the vault, they stand in front of the bank, posing the way their father taught them to. Camera flashes blind him. Strangers are shouting questions over each other, and layered together the words form one unintelligible roar.

It is overwhelming, all this attention. Until now, the children have rarely left the academy, and Luther does not thrive in a crowd like Allison or Klaus. And yet, standing here in the golden sunlight and soaking up all the glory and admiration feels natural. Like he's their protector. He straightens his back, smiles at the public like a hero should. Listening to his father speak, Luther can believe that this is his destiny, that he is part of something special. How could he have ever been afraid?

**DEBRIEFING:**

“To the Umbrella Academy!” shouts Allison, laughing as she clinks her glass of ginger ale against Five's. It is rare they can stay up past their bedtime, but tonight is a special occasion, and their father has told Mom that all but Vanya can celebrate until eleven. The six of them have enough ice cream and soda and candy for twelve people.

“Very well done for a first attempt,” says their father. “I must say, most of you did far better than I was expecting.”

Luther beams. He is feeling giddy from the high of the sugar and the mission, and to someone raised on a starvation diet, Dad's meagre ration of praise might as well be a feast.

This is the best day of his life. He forgives his father for everything.

“I got two bad guys,” boasts Diego, and Luther resists the temptation to say he got at least four. If it were a competition, Number Six would have won anyway. He wonders where Ben went, but then he sees Klaus talking to him in the corner, looking uncharacteristically grave and with an arm on Ben's shoulder. From this angle, Ben's face is not visible. Luther ignores them.

“When is our next mission?” asks Luther, bursting with excitement.

“Patience, Number One,” says Father. “Evil never sleeps, but young children must sometimes. I expect you to go out in the field every few weeks. The rest of your time shall be spent training your minds and bodies.”

Something too ugly for a day like this flickers inside him at the word “training” and the associations it has gathered like fleas over a lifetime. But Luther pushes it aside with a reflex so quick he barely notices, and then there is nothing but the warm afterglow of victory again.

This is only the beginning, Luther knows. But although his is not an easy path, it is a clear one, and Number One is born for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a one-shot. If all the missions were this length, this would have stayed a one-shot.


	2. UMBRELLA ACADEMY MISSION #6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings: brief homophobia and sexism, and not-so-brief exposition about the convoluted politics of fictional countries.

**BRIEFING:**

“Children, stand by for your assignment!” Father barks over the siren.

Luther heads into formation. In the entrance hall, his brothers and sisters are lined up in numerical order, with a gap between Three and Five.

“Coming,” shouts Klaus, barrelling down the stairs as he shoves an arm through the sleeve of his blazer.

Father's lip curls. “Number Four, what in Heaven's name is that monstrosity on your head?”

Klaus's smile wavers for an instant but remains on his face. “It keeps my hair out of the way when we fight. Besides, isn't it pretty?” he asks. Luther can't tell for the life of him if Klaus is sincere or trying to get a rise out of their father. “You said we should look our best for the photographers.”

“You look like a fool,” says Dad. “Not to mention a pansy, although I suppose if the shoe fits...” He yanks the sparkly silver headband off Klaus's head. The smile vanishes, replaced with an expression like Klaus has just been dunked in freezing water.

Luther frowns. Lately, nothing is ever good enough for Sir Reginald—the children are always too loud, or too clumsy, or too slow-witted. The brief improvement in their father's mood from when the missions started has already faded. Although Dad doesn't talk to Luther with the irritation he shows certain of the weaker soldiers, it seems Luther cannot wrench so much as a smile from him anymore. And nowadays he never has time for private conversations with Luther in his study or in the courtyard. Luther suspects his father must be under a lot of pressure.

“It's time for your mission briefing,” says Father, then signals to Pogo on the stairwell. The siren stops. “Who here can tell me about the Republic of East Kaczorkia?”

Five raises his hand. When Father calls on him, he is smug. “It's a former satellite state of the Soviet Union. It split off from Greater Kaczorkia to become its own country in 1992.”

“Very good, Number Five.” Reginald marches back and forth, like a general surveying his platoon. “Now, has anyone heard of the Kaczorkian Unionist Army?”

Five has his arm raised again. Father says, “Someone else.”

Three offers a hesitant, “They want to unite the country?”

“No,” says Father, with a sneer. “Not your wheelhouse, I'm afraid. Anyone else?” Suddenly, Luther feels his father's eyes bore into him. “Number One, you should know this.”

Luther freezes. “Uh...I think they're terrorists?”

“Number One, speak with confidence. No uhs or I-thinks. A leader who shows indecision is a weak leader.” Luther straightens his posture. He knows his father is right. Dad continues. “But close enough. They are a terrorist organization, founded in 1995, consisting primarily of ethnic Yudonians who believe in a united Yudonia...”

“Wait a minute,” says Allison. “How is that any different from my answer?”

“You will speak when spoken to, Number Three. But for your information, they do not simply want to 'unite a country.' Their mission, you silly girl, is to establish an anarcho-communist state in the Caucasus comprising regions of East Kaczorkia, Greater Kaczorkia, the Yudonian Federation, and Azhakhoria that have sizable Yudonian pluralities. Any airheaded simpleton could surmise that unionists unite, but the details of this complex geopolitical—”

“I heard a rumour you thought I was smart.”

Luther's jaw drops at her nerve. Four lets out an impressed whistle.

“Using your powers for an advantage,” says Father, but his eyes cloud over. “Very shrewd of you. Of course, you shall be punished for this later, but I'm impressed. Perhaps you are more than a pretty face, Number Three.” Luther likes Allison, so he suppresses the urge to say that it's not fair, she's cheating and didn't earn the compliment fair and square like he did. In the past, she's confided in him that she struggles to escape the Smurfette box their father and the media have placed her in, and Luther knows she does what she must to survive in this household. “The American government is adopting a position of neutrality in the conflict, but we have intelligence that Yudonian Federation agents are working to destabilize East Kaczorkia. This brings us to our mission.”

Luther feels a thrill of anticipation. This is what he lives for.

“I've received reports that KUA terrorists have taken over the Yudonian embassy in East Kaczorkia. Your goal is to infiltrate the embassy and eliminate everyone inside. To prevent retaliation, this will also be a covert operation. No publicity this time, much as this may disappoint some of you.” Father glares at a spot in the line to Luther's left, and Luther knows without turning his head that he is looking at Three and Four. “That also means all security footage must be destroyed. We don't want it falling into the hands of the KUA.”

Up until now, Ben has seemed apathetic, but for some reason this catches his attention. He is giving Five beside him a confused look, but Five only shrugs.

Then Father turns to Luther. “Number One, how do you propose we enter?”

Luther is caught off guard. He's never been good at thinking on the spot. “I th...we can climb over the gate. Or break it. Yeah. That works. We can brute-force it. We have superpowers and the element of surprise on our side.”

“Or we could c-c-climb through the windows,” says Diego.

“Speak when spoken to, Number Two,” says Father. “Number One, there are security cameras around the perimeter. The KUA will also have snipers on the roof of the building. How are you going to avoid this?”

“We can use Five to scout for us first.” Luther knows nothing about the strength of their enemy or the layout of the building, but like Father says, he must feign confidence. The past five missions have taught Luther that the act of making a decision is more important for team cohesion than the decision itself. “He's quick enough to dodge them. Then he can jump back in with Three and take out the lookouts. Once they clear the path and give us a signal, the rest of us rush in.”

“That won't work,” says Diego. “There might be guh...g-g-guh....” But whatever point he is trying to make is stuck in his mouth. Diego's helpless frustration at the gulf between his thoughts and his words is obvious.

“Number Two,” says Father. “ _You will speak when spoken to._ Why do you bother to disobey me just to g-g-guh at us?”

Diego is staring at his father with a look in his eyes far too close to hatred for Luther's comfort. His fists are clenching into balls at his sides, and Luther thinks he can almost see squiggly lines of rage emanating off him like in a comic strip. But Luther also thinks, tough, Diego, those are the breaks. There are six of them, and someone has to be second place.

**THE MISSION:**

It is a ten-hour flight to Ylebatica, the capital of East Kaczorkia.

On their father's private airplane, Luther occupies himself by preparing for the mission. Before they left, their father provided him with blueprints of the embassy. The control panel on the first floor where the guards monitor CCTV footage is circled in red. Luther draws arrows and numbers from 1 to 6 all over the floor plan, plotting their entry.

“Why are we waiting?” asks Five, tapping his foot. “We're in range, I could be in there right now.”

“You need backup,” says Luther. “Father always says there's strength in numbers. You'll be safer if Three watches your back.”

“I can jump more quickly alone,” says Five. “And further.”

“Yes, but the problem is when you get there,” says Luther. “There's no rush.”

Finally, they start to descend.

“Everyone,” shouts Luther. “As soon as we hit the ground, a car will—”

Five is gone.

“Seriously?” asks Luther. “He couldn't wait two minutes?”

“Typical Five,” says Diego.

The plane lands on the Umbrella Corporation's East Kaczorkian airbase, fifteen miles away from the capital. They wait for Five to reappear on the tarmac.

They wait some more. Luther wants to punch his fist through a wall. Finally, after thirty minutes have passed, he says, “We can't keep the driver waiting any longer.”

The chauffeur their father has hired waits for them in a black armoured car. A very large and inconspicuous insignia that Luther does not recognize is painted crudely in white on each side. Soon they arrive at the embassy. Luther would have expected more sign of a struggle—military or police outside, shell blasts—but the embassy looks normal, unmanned security checkpoint aside. Maybe Five is inside, or maybe not.

“Well, I guess we're using brute force after all,” says One with a sigh. “Number Six, break through the gates!”

Six sucks in his breath, and everyone steps away from him. Then he lifts his sweater and looks at his belly. “Hey, guys. Mind lending me a hand for a bit?”

The tentacles ease out of Ben's stomach, slither around the metal grating that blocks the checkpoint, and then yank. With an earsplitting sound, the metal twists and then snaps in two. Luther is jealous of their strength—even he can't break thick iron bars so easily. The five of them run up the driveway to the building, passing abandoned cars.

They are halfway to the door when gunfire peppers the air. Diego is the only one of any use at this range, but Luther decides he can act as a decoy. A bonus of his superhuman strength and resilience is that bullets need to be at close range and hit vital organs to really do damage. He lets out a ridiculous battle yell to attract the snipers' attention, then dashes toward the door. Luther feels silly, but it works. The few bullets that graze him will do no more than leave bruises after.

He glances behind him to check on the others, and sees that Ben's tentacles have formed a protective circle around Ben and Allison and Klaus. When bullets become lodged in the monster's flesh, it leaks a blueish-green fluid, but it does not seem deterred. Diego is using a black Mercedes with diplomatic plates as cover. Whenever there is a lull in the shooting, he tosses a knife out, then ducks. Knives are zipping through the air with a sharp whistle past Luther's ear. They defy the laws of gravity, flying upward until they reach the rooftop and curve midair toward the snipers. Figures tumble to the ground.

Soon the shooting dies down. They reach the entrance. The door is locked, but One kicks it down easily. Inside, he is greeted to the sight of two men in military uniforms pointing rifles at him. Before Luther can move, blades are jutting out of their throats. The soldiers collapse.

“Thanks, Two!” shouts One.

Diego grins and flashes a thumbs-up.

They walk through the metal detector, over the bloody carpet strewn with bodies. It's obvious someone else got there first.

“Guys,” says Klaus, pointing to the top of the staircase. “Guys! Look up!”

“I see nothing,” says Ben.

“Exactly,” says Klaus. “Those are fresh spirits. Ooh, and they're pissed. They must have come from a fight up there.”

There are only two possibilities. “Klaus,” says Luther, “can you ask them who did this?”

Klaus takes a deep breath, as though steeling himself, and then shouts, “Hey! Does anyone up there speak English? We're looking for whoever...” He flinches and turns his back to the stairs. “I...don't think they're in the mood to help us.”

More gunshots, coming from upstairs. It dawns on Luther. “Five,” he says.

Luther runs up the stairs. “Stay back,” he calls to the others.

A flash of blue, and then Five appears at the end of the hall. He is panting and wheezing.

“See?” gasps Five. “I...told you I could...handle it.” Then he collapses to his knees.

It all happens too fast for Luther to react. A middle-aged woman catches up to Five, dressed in pearls and heels and a pencil skirt and a blouse that is speckled with blood. She is pale and shaking, but she is holding a handgun. She barks a command in a foreign language at Five, who tries to lunge at her but only makes it two steps before falling. The woman raises a quivering arm. She points the gun directly at Five's head, and Luther cannot understand what she is saying, but she sounds afraid—

“I heard a rumour you shot yourself instead,” shouts Allison, suddenly right behind Luther. Then she covers her mouth, and a look of pure horror passes over her face, like she has forgotten something important, the most important thing of all.

The woman's eyes turn cloudy, and her body jerks like a marionette. She raises her handgun to her own temple. The sound rings in their ears, and when blood and brain matter fly out, Allison screams.

**DEBRIEFING:**

“We did it again,” says Luther, feeling a cocky grin spread across his face. They are soaring above the farmlands of East Kaczorkia now.

“We kick butt at this,” says Diego.

Klaus lets out a moan. “Jesus, can you shut the hell up? I don't speak a word of Yudonian. What do you even want from me?”

When Allison realizes he is looking in her direction, she looks sick. “Klaus, please don't tell me one of them followed me home.”

“Fine,” says Klaus. “I won't.”

“Great,” says Allison. She takes a shaky breath. “Is it...is it mad at me?”

“It doesn't matter,” says Klaus. “At least you have the option of pretending it's not there.”

“Maybe I'll never learn how,” says Allison, staring out the window at the clouds.

Luther stretches his arms, leans back into the plush leather seat. “We're like Captain America,” he says, elated. “Isn't it crazy? We're only twelve and we get to save the world for real. We're so lucky.”

“So lucky,” repeats Allison, in a flat voice.

The conversation dies down. Five is curled up in a ball on his seat, fast asleep. The other children are starting to drift off, jet-lagged and tired from the fight.

Ben looks pensive. “Luther,” he starts, “can I talk to you about something?”

“Great job on the mission, Six,” says Luther. “And sure, what's up?”

Ben doesn't seem particularly flattered. “It's just...am I weird for thinking something doesn't make sense?”

“We have superpowers,” says Luther. “Our entire lives are nonsensical if you think about it too closely.”

“No,” says Ben, with a frustrated frown. “I just don't understand why we got involved in the first place.”

Luther raises an eyebrow. It's not rocket science. “Because they're terrorists?”

“Terrorists in a foreign conflict that has nothing to do with us,” says Ben. “Look...you know that the KUA are Yudonian, right? Why are they attacking the Yudonian embassy? It's an open secret that the Yudonian Federation is funnelling guns and money into the KUA to fight a proxy war against Azhakhoria.”

This is too much for Luther to process at once. “Okay, first of all, how do you even know so much about East Kaczorkian politics?” he asks. “Second, so what? Terrorists do crazy things. The whole point is the terror.”

“We're spending twenty hours on a plane, Luther,” says Ben. “It's not like I had anything better to do than read about the people we're killing. But anyway, don't you get it? This whole thing is fishy. They didn't act like terrorists at all. It's almost as if we surprised them. What was their goal? Or to put it another way, what was Dad's goal?”

“Dad believes in doing the right thing,” says Number One. “If bad guys are committing crimes, we stop the bad guys.”

Ben's shoulders slump, but he presses on. “And how did Dad know about any of this?” he asks. “Why did he want us to keep it a secret?”

“Father has resources,” says Luther, with a tone he hopes ends the discussion.

Ben sighs and pulls a book out of his bag.

The rest of the flight passes in relative silence. The gentle hum of the engine soothes Luther like a lullaby. He closes his eyes, and time slips away. When he opens them again, the plane is dark. He does not know what timezone or country they are in. The others all seem to be asleep, except for Klaus, who is screwing his eyes shut and sticking fingers into his ears.

“You okay?” asks Luther.

“Don't worry, I'm good,” says Klaus, giving him a weak smile. “I'll take care of it as soon as we get home.”

Luther watches his siblings with pride. Aside from the Five incident, they worked so well as a team today. Together, they are cogs in one powerful machine. And Luther is the leader, he thinks, with renewed wonder. Imagine being one of forty-three miracle babies in a world of seven billion, then also the first of those forty-three. Sir Reginald Hargreeves has blessed him with a priceless gift, and Luther knows to treasure it.

When they arrive at the house, their father is sitting in the parlour, sipping whiskey. The phonograph plays a mournful violin concerto. He stands immediately. “How did it go?”

Their father is silent as Number One recounts the mission. Then he smiles. “Very good,” he says simply.

Luther feels a rush of accomplishment. For once, they alleviated Dad's stress instead of adding to it.

“We should celebrate,” says Diego, later that night, after their father has retreated to his study.

“Griddy's again?” asks Five.

Ben's face lights up. “I'd love to.”

“Count me in,” says Klaus. His cheeks are flushed. “Let's get out of this—whoa.” He bumps into the table and spills his drink. “My bad.”

“I need some fresh air,” says Allison. “I'm in.”

Everyone turns to Luther. One question is written all over their faces, _will you be a wet blanket this time_. It's all the more irritating because of the grain of truth buried in there. Guilt and anxiety gnaw at him. What if the cameras see them, what if Dad punishes him, what if Dad loses all his faith in Luther and he gets demoted, what if what if...

He knows their father wouldn't like their sneaking out. But some days he thinks his father doesn't like anything. They are crushed under so many rules—what they can wear, when they can talk, where they can go—that it gets hard to breathe. Luther tries to be good, he really does, but there's only so long he can be Number One before he burns himself out and the kid in him takes over.

“Fine,” says Luther. “Tonight we let Grace put us to bed. Then we meet in Five's room at 10 PM and sneak out through the fire escape.”

“Can I come too?” asks Vanya.

“You never come to our after-mission parties,” says Diego. “Why do you even want to?”

Vanya lowers her eyes. “Dad never invites me.”

“She's coming,” says Five. “That's final.”

Something about Five's tone gets under Luther's skin.

“Why are you speaking for all of us, Number Five?” Luther is still bitter over Five ruining his plan today. “If this were really a decision only one of us makes, it should be me as the leader.”

Five rolls his eyes. “It should be me as someone who's a lot smarter than you. I say she's coming.”

At this point, Luther no longer cares what the argument is about. He needs to blow off steam. “Can't you be a team player for once?” asks Luther, and now the floodgates have opened. “You can't listen or compromise. Everything we do needs to be your way, or else you take your ball and go home. It's not like this is the last time we're ever going to Griddy's. You don't know, maybe the rest of us wanted this to be for the people who risked their lives today.”

Vanya's lip quivers, and Luther realizes he's being unfair to her. It is not her fault that Five acted up on the mission. She never asked to be born without any superpowers or useful combat skills. Even though Luther sometimes wonders why she's even at the Academy, if he wants to be a good leader, a good brother, he should try to make her feel better.

“No offence, Seven,” says Luther. “I'm just saying.” There you go.

“You d-don't get to decide what Vanya does, Luther,” says Diego, and Luther wants to yell at the injustice of Diego changing his mind just to gang up on him. But a leader needs to pick his battles.

“It doesn't matter,” says Luther. “If she wants, she can come. I don't mind.”

Truth be told, Luther is sort of grateful Vanya came in the end. She doesn't speak much, but her presence changes the group dynamic, makes it more domestic—not a team, but a family. As they sit in the booth, boxes of doughnuts and drinks on the table, Luther watches his brothers and sisters. He realizes that he might love them.

Klaus is sticking straws in his nose and pretending to be a walrus, which makes Ben laugh a lot louder than Luther has heard in a long time. Five and Diego have challenged each other to a doughnut-eating contest. Luther thinks this can only end badly. Vanya sits beside Five, eyes shining, as though she is watching something mesmerizing instead of two boys shoving junk food down their throats as quickly as possible. This might be the first time Luther can remember her smiling.

Allison turns to Luther with a solemn expression. “It's weird, coming here tonight. Nothing's changed, and yet it all feels so...different.”

Luther looks around. Sees Five try to fit an entire honey cruller into his mouth and Vanya applaud and Klaus make Ben squeal by attacking him with the snotty straws and Diego stand up at once with a sickly pallor and dash to the bathroom. “It's the same as always,” he says. “That's why I like it here. We can be kids instead of superheroes.”

“I'm not a kid anymore,” says Allison. Luther wants to say, that's not true, or I don't understand what you mean, but then he sees her eyes are misty. He doesn't need to understand, just to pull her close and hold her.

If someone ever cared enough to ask Luther his purpose in life, he would say that it's going on missions, of course. That it's what he was molded for, that he thrives on the teamwork and the planning and the direction. But now he thinks that if he carried a button he could press at any point to freeze time forever, maybe he'd choose right here. This night, this moment. An ephemeral magic blankets the seven of them that will be dust in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always bugged me in the show that the characters would run out in the open when they were being shot at. This is my weak attempt to justify it.
> 
> Setting a goal for myself of posting Chapter 3 as soon as I have a complete first draft for Chapter 5.


	3. UMBRELLA ACADEMY MISSION #31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder that this story has a Graphic Depictions of Violence tag. This is one of two chapters in this fic that need it. If you were nice enough to give this story a chance even though that makes you squeamish, then thank you, and in return I'll say that everything up until the word "clatter" is pretty typical of what you'd see in canon. Everything after is...not, but you could skip ahead from there to the debriefing and pick up on what you missed easily.

**BRIEFING:**

The siren is giving Luther a splitting headache. Some things never change.

“Dad, can we stop it already?” says Allison.

“Not until everyone is here, Number Three,” says Dad, with a pointed look toward the gap between Three and Six.

Luther is starting to get annoyed. “This is really unprofessional of—”

He sees Klaus walking down the stairs as though he has all the time in the world.

“Hey, peeps,” says Klaus.

“You are late, Number Four.”

“Fashionably late, mon père,” says Klaus. He strolls over to his spot in the line, then drapes his arms around Three's and Six's shoulders. “Ally. Benny. How's it hanging?” Three and Six giggle. Luther wishes they would stop encouraging him.

Sir Reginald is fuming, and Luther feels a twinge of pity. After years of practice, Klaus seems to have finally cracked the code to one-upping their father. Luther thinks he would lose his mind if Four showed Number One that much disrespect on missions. It's bad enough dealing with Two on his pricklier days.

“Pogo, the bell!” calls Sir Reginald. The siren goes mercifully silent.

“Your mission today requires caution. Armed robbers sent by the Scaruffi crime family are attacking the auction house on 23rd Street. This auction house has artwork, jewellery, and luxury goods valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. See to it that these men are brought to justice, one way or another. Now, this is a highly sophisticated operation—hundreds of mobsters with military-grade weaponry. The police are fearful of a hostage situation, but according to my sources, all employees and patrons have either escaped or been killed, so you need not worry. However, take care not to damage any priceless artifacts.”

Luther watches Ben for his reaction, but Ben only gives a resigned sigh.

“Number One,” says Father. “You know the layout of the building. Brief the others on your plan.”

“Yes, Father.” He begins to swell with pride. By now, he can generate tactics for infiltration missions like these on autopilot. Number One steps out of the line and turns to his soldiers. “The building is six stories high and sixty thousand square feet. That leaves lots of weak points. I bet the street entrance will be guarded, but there are offices on the sixth floor that can only be accessed with key cards. We can take the helicopter and break in through one of the windows. They'll be expecting an attack from below, not from above.”

“What if there are cameras?” says Two, with a defiant stare.

Of course it was Two. Luther amends his plan on the fly, hoping no one notices. “I doubt the burglars have access to the CCTV network. But to be safe, we'll send a scout to the security room on the second floor. He can sneak up on any guards and take them out one by one.”

Two rolls his eyes. “And how do we do this, with magic?”

Luther is kicking himself now. The truth is, he slipped. Five was always his go-to for this kind of thing. Now their team is sorely lacking in stealth.

He thinks quickly. “Number Four can do it,” he blurts out.

Klaus blinks. “Wait, what?”

It is a worrying sign that Klaus has less confidence in himself than Luther does. But One knows he must commit to his plans once he says them out loud. “You can see the ghosts of their victims. They can give you intel on their whereabouts.”

“Right,” says Klaus. “This way I'll have ten seconds' warning before I get a bullet in my brain. Sounds great.”

Luther lets out an exasperated sigh. “I'll come with you,” he says. Four's cowardice drives Luther up a wall, but as the leader, One must show that he is willing to put himself at risk. He will not send a sibling defenceless to the front lines. “Just point me in the right direction, and I can be the muscle.”

“Sure, can do,” says Klaus. He coughs. “Uh, when are we leaving for this mission again?”

“What do you mean, when?” says Luther. “They're robbing the place right now. It's a fifteen-minute helicopter ride to the auction house. It's not like we can stop for coffee on the way.”

Klaus gulps. “Okay, then. This should be interesting.”

“As for the rest of you,” continues Luther, “you can hang back until we give the signal that the coast is clear. Then we split up and pick them off. Diego and Allison, you stay together. Ben will guard the flank.” He grins. “This will be a piece of cake.”

Luther looks toward his father, waiting for affirmation. But Dad says nothing. He is observing them with a detached curiosity, as though they are subjects in a science experiment.

**THE MISSION:**

The auction house is sleek and sand-coloured, with large glass panels and gold-trimmed doors. By the main entrance are abstract sculptures of crisscrossing prisms that sparkle with rainbow light. Outside, the block is cordoned off by police ribbons. Pogo flies the helicopter above the building and hovers.

Number One lowers a rope ladder, then scales down the side of the building to a small window on the top floor. It is locked, but they were prepared for this. There is only enough room for two people on the sill, so after Number Two descends, they begin the tedious work of covering the window with duct tape. Diego complains throughout that this is a waste of time, that they could just break it, until Luther snaps, “So now you don't care about getting caught?”

Luther tries not to dwell on how much easier this would be with Five. It gives him a hollow ache.

From the helicopter above, Three drops a blanket just long enough for One to grab the other end. He and Two tape it to the corners. Then Luther smashes his fist through the blanketed glass. The window shatters with a muffled sound, like a suffocated scream. One at a time, the others climb down the rope ladder and through the chasm, stepping gingerly over the glass shards. The office does not match the opulence of the building's facade. There is a typewriter on a simple desk, a lamp, a filing cabinet. An oil painting on the wall that would not seem out of place in Sir Reginald's mansion is the only clue this is a place where hundreds of millions trade hands.

“Klaus,” whispers Luther, once everyone is inside. “Let's go.” When Klaus does not react, Luther goes, “Klaus!”

“Huh, what?” says Klaus. “Sorry, spaced for a second. Yeah, sure.”

The two boys leave the office. Down the empty corridor, to the emergency exit. Luther knows the way from the blueprints he has studied. “Do you see anyone?” he asks Klaus, as they descend the stairwell.

Klaus looks very pale. “Uh...no. N-nothing.”

Luther smiles. “Then don't be so worried.”

They reemerge on the second floor.

Even though Luther's upbringing has made him no stranger to luxury, the auction house takes his breath away. It is a different sort of beauty from Reginald's nineteenth-century hunting lodge aesthetic. Everything is spare and minimalist and impossibly clean. Glossy walls lined with modern art and boxy glass cases give the corridor a futuristic streamlined effect. In a classic jeweller's trick, the cases are backlit strategically to maximize the appeal of the goods inside. He sees that some of them have pottery or antique silverware or precious stones in vibrant colours, but others have been smashed, their contents removed.

The boys keep walking. Luther steps around a spot of blood on the floor.

“ _Still_ no spirits?” whispers One. Four shakes his head, and the boyish guilt on his face reminds Luther of when Pogo calls on Klaus and he hasn't done the assigned reading.

The main lobby is vast, with a floor of polished pink marble and a high domed ceiling that reaches above the fourth floor. Two spiral staircases twist like corkscrews on each side, connected on the second, third, and fourth floors by overhanging balconies. Now they must cross the second-floor balcony to get from the west staircase, near the wing they came from, to the east staircase, which is connected to the hallway leading to the security room. This is the most dangerous part.

He looks down, and his heart rate spikes. Below are dozens of criminals, most of whom are armed. They are passing canvases, cases, and chests down an assembly line, stacking them in piles, taking inventory on clipboards. They're organized, he'll give them that.

Luther crouches to hide beneath the railing of the balcony, then pulls on the sleeve of Klaus's jumpsuit when he seems slow on the uptake. The railing consists of open wooden bars, and even when they lie flat on their stomachs, the base does not cover the tops of their heads. If anyone looks up, they are finished. So they slither along the balcony until they reach the other staircase, miraculously undetected. When the coast is clear, they bolt. To the left and then down the hall is the security office.

A man in a police uniform is sitting at the counter. Luther is about to call out, but as they approach, he notices how the officer is slumped in his chair. There is a red circle in the centre of his forehead. Streaks of dried blood line his face.

“Klaus, can you ask his ghost—?”

“Hey, we missed some!” shouts a voice from behind them.

Two men with AR-15s strapped to their sides are running toward the counter. Luther prepares to attack—

“Gosh, I'm so glad to see you,” says Klaus. He waltzes over at a leisurely pace, and Luther stifles a groan. “Can you guys help us? We're a bit lost.”

The mobsters stop in their tracks.

“What the—what the hell are you doing?” says one. “Hands up!”

“Shoot them and get it over with,” says the other. He is already sliding the rifle up.

“They're kids, Tommy. Jesus.”

“Look at the masks,” says Tommy, pointing the gun at Klaus's head. “It's those Umbrella kids. Careful, the blond one can rip your spine out.”

“This has Vignotti's hands all over it,” says Not Tommy, as he reaches for his own gun. “What deal did he cut with Hargreeves?”

“No, wait,” says Klaus frantically. “We're just fans. It's cosplay! See, my brother, he—he has an incontinent bladder, and we really need to find a bathroom, like, now. Otherwise, it'll get messy.” For a moment, Luther hopes Tommy shoots him.

“Get back!” says Not Tommy. He pauses, clearly at a loss for what to make of the situation. “Are you fucking brain-damaged?”

Klaus marches forward with raised hands. “I'm so sorry. Please don't hurt me. It's not my fault that my brother is too shy to—” Out of nowhere, he swerves and shoves his fingers into Tommy's eye. Sloppier form than on their childhood poster, but it works.

Tommy howls. He pulls the trigger, but misses wildly. Luther makes the most of the chaos. He rushes forward, grabs Not Tommy before he can react, then body-slams him into the wall. Without checking to see if Not Tommy gets up (he won't), he punches Tommy in the face, breaking his nose and knocking him out cold.

From around the corner are footsteps.

“Run, you idiot!” says Luther, yanking Klaus's arm. All hope of reaching the security room forgotten, they sprint back through the hall. Guns sing behind them. Roughly, Luther shoves Klaus forward, Luther positioning himself as a shield.

Too late, he realizes that they have run to the exposed stairway. Right into a trap.

The element of surprise buys them time. They sprint up the east staircase, and they are almost at the third floor before the gunfire starts. Luther winces as a bullet lands in his ribcage. He plucks it out and flicks it to the ground.

Up the stairs, midway to the fourth floor. Their last hope is to reach the others. But now dozens of mafiosi are filing up both staircases. The only thing saving One and Four is that most of the gunmen are holding their fire to avoid shooting their own teammates. It is hard to get a clean shot with how the stairs wind around.

“Luther! Klaus!”

Diego and Allison call down from the fourth floor. They are at the top of the west staircase, across the balcony.

“What the hell?” shouts Diego, flinging knives down. “We'd have waited forever if we hadn't heard shooting.”

“I heard a rumour you shot yourself in the head!” screams Allison. “I heard a rumour you shot yourself in the head! I heard a rumour you shot yourself in the head!”

One by one, gunmen are stopping in their tracks and blowing their own brains out. The macabre firing squad does wonders for destroying their enemy's morale. On the west staircase, men are shoving downward to escape Allison as more try to ascend, creating a bottleneck. They are trampling on top of each other, tripping over corpses, and a heaving mass of bodies cascades down.

The enemies climbing the east staircase are faring much better. Three cannot project loudly enough above the gunfire and noise to reach them. Luther and Klaus reach the fourth floor, but they are helpless to fend them off. Klaus grabs a vase sitting on a column on the landing and throws it down the stairs. It misses their pursuers entirely, but they stumble over the shattered pieces. So much for preserving the artifacts. Machine guns rattle. A sharp pain in Luther's back, then another. He can't hold on much longer.

Diego catches on and runs to the middle of the balcony, directing his attention to the east. He makes a dent in the crowd, but soon he says, “Crap, I'm out of knives.”

Then he yelps. Diego is more vulnerable to bullets than Luther is. He clutches his bleeding arm, and his cries are piercing, less like a soldier wounded in battle and more like a little boy who has fallen off his bike.

Allison's voice is getting hoarse. “I heard a rum—”

A sculpture bashes her head, and Three collapses, out cold. “Allison!” Luther screams, running across the balcony. Klaus is forced to follow.

Behind her are five robbers who have come from the west wing, carrying stolen goods. One of them is holding the sculpture. They drop the loot and pull out their own assault rifles as they run across the balcony toward Luther and Diego and Klaus. Even Luther cannot survive a headshot at this range. On the east side, the first attackers are reaching the fourth floor. The boys are caught in a pincer.

Right before the robbers shoot, Luther thinks, we're all going to die here, and it's my fault—

—and then their guns fall to the ground with a clatter.

Luther lunges forward to capitalize on their weakness. He is not about to second-guess a miracle. But then he stops. Something is off. The five men are all screaming, stumbling drunkenly and grasping their shoulders. Between their fingers, blood is spurting. Then he looks at the floor, and sees with horror that it was not their guns that were ripped away, but the arms holding them.

The children move to the side, letting Six take over. The creatures are surgical in their precision. Bam, and a neck is snapped. Bam, and a body is eviscerated. There is no screaming anymore. A handful of men from the east side take a couple of steps across the balcony, but freeze in place when they get a better look.

Number One steps forward. You could hear a pin drop. “Do you want to fight, or do you want to surrender?” he shouts at the survivors, and now his voice carries better than Three's.

The sight is almost comical. Sixty toughened mobsters, seasoned professionals, simultaneously drop their weapons and raise their hands. They fall to their knees, shaking like reeds.

“That was close,” says One. “Two, Four, you start tying them up for the police. I'll watch Alli—”

Ben lets out a moan.

His bloodstained tentacles are writhing in agitation. Luther has a bad feeling. He stands in front of Diego and Klaus, pushes them back.

“That's enough,” says Ben. Then one pounces. Straight through the eye socket of one of the men on the balcony. He is dangling like a fish on a hook, twitching. His companions scream. Another tentacle strikes, and with a swish, the others go flying off the balcony, across the hall and four stories down, until they land with a crunch.

“Please,” says Ben, with a whimper. “Isn't it enough?”

But they only thrash harder. Ben stumbles, his centre of gravity off-kilter, and he is pulled by their weight toward the middle of the balcony. Appendages stretch out of Ben's stomach to the left and to the right, snaking their way down the winding flights of stairs all the way to the ground floor. They lash at whoever they overtake with a casual twitch, like flicking away a drop of water. Ben is hugging the lobby, Luther thinks, absurdly. Its limbs must be hundreds of feet long—Luther never realized until now just what the monster can do. Men are leaping from the stairwells to escape. When they hit the ground, some limp away on broken bones and others stop moving. Soon the stairs are wiped clean.

The survivors in the lobby are panicking. Firing useless rifles, fleeing toward the exit—one kneels and crosses himself. A few almost make it to the door. But the monster is too quick. It is crushing them like bugs against the marble floor, choking them and squeezing them until their eyes pop. Luther has seen far more people die in his life than he can count, but even so, he feels queasy. So much death, in so many flavours.

When all struggling stops, the tentacles become still. Slowly, almost gracefully, they slither upward and retract into Ben's stomach. Then Ben leans against the balcony railing. He bends over and vomits.

Luther looks away. The sound of Ben's retching echoes in the silence of the cavernous hall.

“I hate this,” says Ben. He shudders. “God, I hate this.” Smeared bodies paint an eerily beautiful canvas on the shining marble beneath him, like the faithful kneeling before a prophet on the mountain.

**DEBRIEFING:**

“Two injuries,” says their father. “How did this happen, Number One?”

Diego is wincing as Grace disinfects his arm. Allison is clutching her head in a stupor, wearing a pair of dark glasses Mom has given her to help with her concussion. Luther has not told their father about the wounds in his side and back.

“We entered the building as planned,” says Luther. “Number Four and I took the emergency stairwell to get to the second floor, then we headed to the security room. I...took out two guards. Then we fought more off in the lobby.”

“No you didn't,” says Diego. “You were dead meat when we found you. Cornered and outnumbered a hundred to one.”

Luther wants to punch Diego. Might have done it, despite Two's arm, were they not in front of their father. But he takes a deep breath and says, “I didn't say I fought them alone. The others helped.”

“If by helped, you mean we saved your hides,” says Diego. “You're d-d-d-damn lucky Allison and I didn't wait upstairs and twiddle our thumbs like you wanted.”

“Language, Number Two!” says their father, and One feels a nasty glimmer of satisfaction. “Number One, please give more details. How you were caught, who hurt Two and Three, how you escaped...”

“Yes, Father,” says Luther. “After the—after we finished with the security room, we were surprised on the stairwell. There were dozens of them, maybe hundreds, and they were armed with machine guns. Then Two and Three came. We held them off for a bit, but a man attacked Number Three from behind, and one of the shooters got Number Two.” He quickly says, “But we still accomplished our mission. No survivors. Six saw to that.”

“I see,” says Father. Then he says, “Number One, remind me again, why were you heading to the security room alone? That wasn't in our original plan.”

Luther starts. “I...beg your pardon?”

“Remind me,” he repeats. “I'm afraid your thought process eludes me.”

“Because...” Luther can tell he's standing on quicksand. “There may have been cameras.”

“That is not an answer. If one were to make the assumption Scaruffi's men were even monitoring the auction house's surveillance footage, then one might presume the five of you were outed the moment you stepped foot inside the building. If so, why did you bother?”

“So we wouldn't get caught,” says Luther.

“But you were caught,” says Father.

Luther wants to explain how it's not that simple, but he can't verbalize it while he's under pressure. “I know, but...it was a precaution.” His father is looking at him as though this is not enough, so Luther adds, “We always...we always send a scout in first.”

“Those were different times,” says Father, and his face darkens. “Regrettably, what worked in the past cannot work any longer. Moving on, why did you go in alone? Was there any sensible reason to leave the others behind?”

Luther tries to remember why. He's not even sure anymore what he was thinking.

“I see,” says Sir Reginald, in response to his silence. “So what I gather is that you and Number Four, the two soldiers least equipped to deal with hundreds of ranged attackers, waltzed out in the open through enemy territory. You did this under the impression they could see you, so you were offering yourselves as lambs to the slaughter. All while leaving the rest of your teammates unoccupied, several floors up from where they could help you. And for what? Some fixation with cameras?”

One's mouth is dry. “I...” he begins. Tries to think of something in his defence. “I thought you liked the plan.”

“No,” says his father, “I thought that failure was the best teacher. Your plan was idiotic. Do better next time.”

Idiotic. Luther's stomach drops, his throat is closing up. He reaches desperately for any straw he can.

“Klaus didn't warn me!” screams Luther, and Klaus spins around to flash him a betrayed look. “It's not my fault. He was supposed to tell me where the bad guys were.”

“Number One, a true leader does not throw the blame on others. His followers' weaknesses are his own weaknesses.”

Luther sees Diego's smug expression, and it infuriates him.

“Remember, your soldiers are tools at your disposal. Do you blame the saw for not hammering a nail? The hammer for not sawing a block of wood? No, you blame the fool who uses the wrong tool for the job! You should be observant enough to see when someone is not fit for a task. Both in general...and under the circumstances.” Father glares at Number Four, and his face twists with something poisonous. Klaus gives a sarcastic grin and waves.

Luther wants to hide in his room and cry. Why is he the only one who needs to be perfect? Klaus can be useless in a fight, Ben can sleepwalk through missions, and Vanya can just sit at home and play violin. But it's always on Luther to kill himself picking up the slack for everyone else.

Afterwards, Klaus hisses, “Thanks for throwing me under the bus like that. You're such a sweet brother.”

Luther says nothing. He fixes his eyes on the ground.

The atmosphere is tense. Ben's face is a greenish colour. Diego is clutching his newly bandaged arm and glowering.

Allison breaks the silence by saying, “We should go to Griddy's again.”

“But you and Diego are injured,” says Luther.

Diego scowls at him. “I'm not a b-b-buh...a child.”

“I'll manage,” says Allison. “I just think we all need to get out of the house.”

“Sure, what the hell,” says Klaus. “You know I'm always up for trouble.”

“I could not have less of an appetite right now,” says Ben. “But I'll come if everyone else is going.”

They all turn to Luther.

“What are you all looking at me like that for?” he asks, offended.

“Will you rat us out this time?” says Diego.

“Excuse me?” says Luther. “Since when have I ratted you out?”

“Literally ten minutes ago,” says Klaus.

“When I took home the Murder Magician's saws,” says Diego.

“Oh,” says Ben, “don't forget the time we broke into Dad's office and stole his phrenology kit, then had a sword fight with the calipers—”

“That was different!” says Luther. “I've never ratted you out about Griddy's.”

And it's true. Those other incidents had the potential to harm the team's performance. Leaders are supposed to be respected, not liked, his father says, and it was Luther's responsibility to stop them. Sneaking out to Griddy's is...building team rapport, Luther rationalizes. Even Father admits that's important. If Luther needs to bend the rules tonight, it's only because his father struggles to conceptualize what rapport is. Despite the tongue-lashing Luther has received tonight, he knows deep down that Dad means well—or else why would he shower them with gifts and ensure that all their needs are provided for? But sometimes it seems like a page was ripped out of their father's manual for human interaction. Like someone who waters a plant twice a day and treats its soil with expensive fertilizer, but keeps it locked in the closet away from the sun.

Luther has never raised children, but he's never been good at knowing when people need sunlight either. No matter his intentions, he always seems to say the wrong thing. He understands too well the self-made prison that must trap his father. So he does his best not to take it personally.

When they are halfway down the fire escape, Luther thinks, right, we forgot to tell Vanya, but it doesn't matter. There will be other trips.

At Griddy's, Klaus heads to the counter and picks up a half-dozen doughnuts. “I'm afraid I have to take these to go,” he says. “I'm meeting a couple of friends.” Luther feels a pang of jealousy. He's not sure he's ever had a full conversation with someone outside the Umbrella Academy who wasn't a hostage, a reporter, or a supervillain.

“Remember when Klaus used to do that walrus thing?” says Luther, after Klaus leaves. He chuckles to himself.

Ben makes a face. “It was disgusting and immature,” he says. Ben is staring out the door after Klaus, irritation mixed with something wistful in his eyes.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, eating their doughnuts.

Allison sits next to him on the bench. She takes a bite of a honey cruller. “Five used to like these.”

No one responds. Luther thinks it's his duty to pay his respects. The past never quite disappears if you hold onto it tightly enough. “I remember,” he says. “He could fit a whole doughnut in his mouth. Remember, Diego? You would challenge him to these stupid eating contests, only he would always win and you'd get sick.”

Diego is picking at his doughnut with a sullen determination. He is keeping his head down, refusing to make eye contact with Luther.

“Wait, are you crying?” asks Luther.

“F-fuh-fuck off,” says Diego. “It's the sugar. It's making my eyes water.”

“Okay,” says Luther.

Everyone is silent again. Luther's back is stinging. He decides he should discreetly fetch some rubbing alcohol when they get home.

“How are you feeling?” he whispers to Allison.

“Not great,” she whispers back. “Like the world is spinning and I'm going to pass out.”

Luther motions to his arm. “Need a pillow?”

Allison scoots closer. She takes off her dark glasses and leans her head on his shoulder. The locket he has given her glints golden around her neck. A curl falls across her forehead, and he feels a surge of protectiveness. He lets his arm slide around around her waist, beneath the table where no one can see.

For awhile, Luther feels it. A flicker of the old magic, weaker than it was in its prime but still kicking. But after twenty minutes, Diego says, “Can we go already?” and then they get up and head out into the cold night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no restraint.
> 
> Me writing the outline for this fic: "So in this ONE-SHOT, the missions will be brief and focus more on character development and relationships. People read fanfiction because they care about the characters, not your made-up crime-fighting adventures."  
> Me writing this chapter: "BALLS-TO-THE-WALL ACTION! FLYING BODY PARTS! SCENERY PORN! SHOOTOUTS! ELABORATE CHOREOGRAPHY THAT IS TORTURE TO WRITE! DISMEMBERMENT! BLOOD AND GUTS EVERYWHERE!"
> 
> The next chapter will be very different.


	4. UMBRELLA ACADEMY MISSION #67

**BRIEFING:**

“You wished to see me alone, Father?” says Luther.

“Yes, my boy,” says Sir Reginald. “Close the door behind you, please.”

The word “please” catches Luther off guard, but he acquiesces as always. His father stands and begins to pace across his study. He seems hesitant. Almost unsure of himself, Luther might think, were his father a very different man.

“Number One,” his father starts, “certain objectives require more of a delicate touch.”

Already, Luther is feeling uneasy.

“I have a solo mission for you,” says Father. “One that I cannot trust with anyone else.”

Luther is flattered to be singled out, but he has never considered himself to have the most delicate touch. “Is something the matter?” he asks, with a pang of concern.

“I'm afraid so,” says Father. “Something is gravely wrong. You understand everything I do is for the sake of yourself and the world, right? You know that it's for the best?”

“Of course,” said Luther. His father's words make him ashamed. Some nights, lying awake in bed after a training session that leaves him sore and gasping, he asks himself disloyal questions, like _why._ He's heard his siblings say cruel and unfair things about their father, and Luther doesn't always defend him. Worse, feels a strange release at hearing it out loud, even as he pretends to be outraged. He wonders if it's possible to commit treason against a parent.

“Sometimes I wonder about the others,” says Dad. “It's as though they're growing to hate the Umbrella Academy.” He stops pacing, stares into the fireplace. “All those years ago, my plan seemed foolproof. But I never expected human children to be so unpredictable. Really, it's absurd. You tell them to stay still, and they move. You offer them nutritionally balanced meals, and they gorge on tooth-rotting fluff. You sharpen their intellects with a rigorous academic program, and they whinge and clamour for drivel. And the worst part? They're never grateful for any of it. They act as though the roof above their heads and the clothes on their backs have all grown from the ground. Heaven forbid they repay the favour! If I'd known all this before I...but never mind that.”

As his father rants, Luther nods along. This is familiar territory.

“Perhaps it's to be expected. Your brothers and sisters have been coddled all their lives. How can they see the big picture, when they're too young to have seen what I've seen, or lost what I've lost? No, the others want an easy ride. But do they know the first thing about sacrifice?”

Luther knows all too well what sacrifice is.

“You have qualities of a good leader, Number One,” says his father, and there is a sudden lightness in Luther's chest. All these years, he's heard so much about what he should be doing as a leader. A leader is decisive. A leader is brave. A leader does not complain. A leader puts his objective over personal feelings. But he never hears about what he's already done right. Every time Luther thinks he's improved, the bar is raised even higher. It's so rare that Luther gets to clear it.

“Thank you,” says Luther, far too sincerely, and for a moment, he thinks he has wings.

Then his father says, “But,” and Luther crashes back to earth. He should have known better.

“But part of a leader's job is to inspire the best in his soldiers,” Dad continues. “Can you say to me, honestly, that you have inspired the best in them?”

Number One's face heats up. Scenes from recent missions are running through his head—the injuries, the insubordination, the bickering. Some days, when Diego gives him attitude over the simplest instruction and Klaus wanders off to who knows where and Ben goes through the motions like he'd rather be anywhere else, Luther feels like a failure. “I'm sorry, Father,” he whispers, wishing he could sink into the floor.

“Don't worry, Number One,” says his father. “You can redeem yourself yet.”

He motions Luther forward and hands him a manila envelope. “This mission is classified. You must exercise complete discretion. But first, I've prepared some background reading for you.”

Luther opens it. “I don't understand,” he says, looking through the contents. “These are...”

“My boy,” says his father, “it's time you found out that the Umbrella Academy has some unsavoury secrets.”

**THE MISSION:  
**

Luther waits, surveying the hallway. Determined, but shaken. He has rehearsed his tactics and considered all angles of attack, but no amount of preparation can make his heart ready for what needs to be done.

“Hey. Luther. What's up?” asks Klaus, standing outside his bedroom. He is wearing a turquoise tank top over their uniform pyjama pants.

“Number Four,” says Luther. He motions to the room. “Can I talk to you alone?”

“Sure. Give me a moment. I need to make it presentable.” Klaus heads into his room, then shuts the door in Luther's face before he can look inside. Luther hears the sound of objects being shuffled around, drawers opening and closing.

Thirty seconds later, Klaus pokes his head out and says, “Come in.”

Luther enters. The room does not seem much cleaner. Clothes are strewn all over the floor, and there are empty soda cans and bags of potato chips on the dresser. Luther sits on Klaus's bed. He has not been inside in years. Memories from when they were little kids flood his mind—late at night, they would all sneak into Klaus's room and play Truth or Dare. Four was infamous for never saying no to a dare, and the others exploited it ruthlessly. Sticking forks into electrical sockets, licking toilet bowls, drinking shampoo—he never had limits.

And suddenly, the weight of it hits him. They are not children anymore. Every day, they are changing, becoming just a bit more twisted and hardened and jaded, until they all grow apart and leave each other behind.

“Hey...what's the matter? Is everything okay?” Klaus sits beside Luther on the bed. Luther looks up, and the genuine concern in his brother's eyes nearly breaks him. Nothing makes sense anymore.

“It's nothing,” says Luther, wiping his eyes and looking away. This is so embarrassing.

“Come on, man. You're scaring me. Usually you're Mr. Stiff-Upper-Lip.”

Luther takes a deep breath and tries to drum up enough courage to say it.

“Actually,” says Luther, “I need to ask you something important.”

His brother is nonplussed, but pats his shoulder. “It's okay, big guy. Whatever you want.”

“Klaus,” whispers Luther, “do you do _drug_ _s_?”

He sees shock flicker across Klaus's face for an instant. Then Klaus erupts with hysterical laughter.

“This isn't funny, Klaus. Goddammit. I'm asking you seriously.”

“It's just...sorry. Oh my God.” Klaus is clutching his sides. “You're a gem, Luther. A precious gem.”

“Never mind,” says Luther, defeated. “I tried.”

“Luther, I'm offended,” says Klaus. “This right here is my natural personality. High on life!” He gives Luther his most shameless puppy dog eyes. “How could you ever get such a horrible impression of me?”

Luther can't say, “Because Dad told me.” He was briefed on this. That part of the mission is top secret.

Instead he says, “Because Ben told me,” and Klaus's face twists with rage.

“That...that fucking two-faced...unbelievable. What a hypocrite. He can never keep his moralizing judgmental nose out of my fucking business.”

The sudden 180 is jarring. Luther has never seen Klaus this angry, and it chills him. Like a veil has been lifted and someone who is not his brother was hiding underneath. Klaus springs up. “Well, this was a nice chat,” he says. “If you'll excuse me, I'm going to make some calamari right now.”

“Wait!” calls out Luther, just as Klaus is about to storm out the door.

Klaus spins around and looks into Luther's eyes. His anger dissipates like air from a punctured balloon. “Jesus Christ. Did I just get out-bluffed by you?” He lets out a long sigh. “I must be slipping.”

Klaus sits down beside Luther on the bed. For a while, no one says anything. Klaus is staring at his knees, and Luther thinks he looks sad.

“Look,” he says at last, turning to Luther. “It isn't a—a regular thing. A blunt now and then to mellow out after training, that's all. It's not hurting anyone. Can't we just let sleeping dogs lie?”

Luther does not want to admit that he has no idea what a blunt is, because he's already tired of being laughed at. His father should have prepared him better for this mission.

“Klaus, how could you?” says Luther. “We're fighting gangs every other week. Meanwhile you've been giving them your business.”

Klaus laughs. “Uh-huh, like the Mafia is being kept afloat by my ten bucks. And it's Dad's money anyway. Pretty sure it wouldn't be the first time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Never mind,” says Klaus. “Anyway, I know you think it's your job to get your panties in a twist over what I do for fun. But please don't tell Dad. He has enough reasons to hate me already.”

Luther feels a stab of guilt, but at this point, that horse has left the stable. He says, “But Ben knows?”

Klaus gives him a wry smile. “Luther, no offence, but you might be the last person in this house to know.”

Luther shakes his head. “That's impossible,” he says. “Fine, you like to act out, but the others are different.”

“Oh, don't get me started on the others!” Klaus lets out a huff. “You think I'm the only one who breaks the rules? At least you're consistent. With everyone else, ninety percent of the time it's Klaus the problem child, Klaus the stoner, Klaus the joke. But no, that doesn't stop them from begging me for sips of vodka or puffs of weed when they think they can get away with it. And then the next day they pretend to be angels. Like they're so much better than me, just because I need it more often on account of my, ah, condition. Speaking of which, maybe I should give you the rundown on that...”

“I don't believe you,” says Luther. He refuses to accept this doppelganger of his family. “It can't be everyone. Allison wouldn't keep that from me.”

Klaus laughs. “Are you kidding me? Allison smokes with me all the time.”

It lands like a punch in the gut. “You're lying.”

“I'm serious. Fine, it's usually just cigarettes, but she's not a nun like you.”

Luther doesn't know why it hurts so much. It's more than the betrayal, more than the fear of her getting arrested or lung cancer. He has an image of the five of them, Vanya in on the action too, sneaking off to party while Luther is training or studying alone, consuming blunts and other illicit substances that Luther has never heard of. Laughing over how cool and grown up they are, how they're too cynical for the Umbrella Academy and everything it stands for. Part of a secret world where he doesn't belong anymore.

“You know what, that was shitty of me,” says Klaus, when he sees Luther's face. “You got me, I'm lying. I'm the one bad apple in this family. She did nothing wrong.”

Luther says nothing.

“Look,” says Klaus. “I don't see what the problem is here. Live and let live.”

“Don't you get it?” Luther says. “Our goal in life is to stop crime. We can't turn around and commit it on our days off. That makes us all hypocrites.”

“Says who?” snaps Klaus. “Did any of us ask for this? To become some rich asshole's science experiment? Funny. I don't remember signing a consent form.”

“It's not about consent,” says Luther. Why is he the only one who understands this deep in his bones? “We have a gift. That means it's our duty to help people with it. Who cares if we chose it? No one else can do this, so running away is selfish.”

“Then I'm selfish,” says Klaus. “Sue me. Not everyone is cut out for this, Luther. You love this comic book shit, but I need a break sometimes. You want me to let Dad torture me, and you also want me to stop the only thing that makes me feel less shitty about it for a few hours. Pick one, man.” He gives a forced laugh. “This isn't a life, Luther. I'm getting to the end of my rope.”

“You know what?” says Luther. “This isn't always a picnic for me either.” His voice rises an octave in spite of himself. “Everyone thinks being Number One is easy. Well, it's not.” He ignores Klaus's eye-roll. “Sometimes I think of the consequences if I make even a single slip-up, and there's so much pressure that I just—”

He stops. Things that are better kept under the lid might spill out if he continues.

“But you know what?” says Luther. “I suck it up, because the world needs me.”

“And what if it doesn't?” says Klaus quietly.

“It does,” Luther insists. “It needs both of us.”

Luther thinks that's a nice opportunity to segue into one of the lines of attack his father handed him.

“That's another reason to stay clean,” says Luther. “Being a superhero is hard work. You need to keep your body and mind in top shape, or else you might put yourself or us in danger when we go out in the field.”

Klaus lets out a long sigh, and then his face becomes completely neutral. “Yep,” he says. “That's fair.”

Luther was expecting an argument, and had practiced rebuttals for all possible counters. Now the wind is taken out of his sails. “Uh, well...in that case, I'm glad you agree.” He pauses. What was the next of Dad's bullet points? “Also, we live in the public eye. Imagine if the press found out. You're a role model to little kids.”

“For sure.” Klaus nods contritely. “I should think of the children.”

Luther cannot tell if his words are sinking in. His father also suggested that Luther bring up how distressing Klaus's disregard for his well-being is to Luther and his siblings, how they fear for his safety. In Sir Reginald's words, “Number Four is more susceptible to appeals to emotion than logic.” But it feels insincere. So Luther heads straight for logic.

“Look,” says Luther. “I...I care about your health. It's your body and all.” Then he pulls out the folded papers in his pocket. “But just so you can make an informed decision, you might want to know the facts about drugs.”

**DEBRIEFING:**

Luther is feeling pretty good about himself.

He has rescued a brother from a life of crime, and possibly an early grave. When his father asks him what happened, Luther is excited. He tells Dad how shocked Klaus was to learn the dangerous side effects of what he'd been putting into his body. How Klaus wrapped Luther in a big hug afterwards and thanked him from the bottom of his heart, told him that he was touched by Luther's “extremely entertaining” concern, and that from here on out it was clean living for Klaus, now that he knew the effects of marijuana on a growing boy's hippocampus.

“And what did you do with the contraband?”

Luther blinks. “What do you mean, the contraband?”

“Are you an imbecile?” says Father. “You just took the boy at his word that he turned over a new leaf. Then what, you left? You were supposed to confiscate his drugs. If you didn't, the whole endeavour was futile.”

Luther shrinks inward. “I'll go back for them.” For a moment, Luther fooled himself into thinking Dad would start confiding in him again. This mission might have been his best opportunity to repair their relationship. Now it's gone because Luther messed up, and that door will stay shut for a long time.

Later that night, when he and Allison are sitting on the fire escape together, he asks her, “Did you know that Klaus uses drugs?”

Allison gives him a look.

“Why did no one tell me?” asks Luther, wounded. “You don't trust me?”

“It wasn't my secret to tell,” says Allison. “There's nothing you could have done anyway.”

Luther beams. “That's where you're wrong. He's stopping now.”

“Oh, honey,” says Allison. “Let me guess, he told you so?”

Luther feels sheepish. “Well...yeah. But I gave him some pamphlets.”

Allison bursts out laughing. “Pamphlets?”

“Dad had some. Did you know that forty percent of daily cannabis users develop a dependency? Or that MDMA can cause spikes in body temperature leading to death? Neither did Klaus, apparently. Don't laugh, but I think I actually got through to him.”

“Dad put you up to that?” asks Allison, and Luther doesn't deny it. “Luther, that's exactly why people don't tell you things.”

“I know how it sounds, but...” Luther sighs, and his breath is smoke in the cold autumn air. “I just...I wanted to help.”

Allison gives him a sad smile. “You're not the first to try.”

Above the dirty skyscrapers, the stars are hazy pinpricks that bleed into the light pollution of the city. They sit in silence together for awhile. Watching the night sky, as though they could spread their wings like birds and join the stars, unchain themselves from the ground.

“It's getting cold,” she says. “I'm heading inside.”

She is climbing back through the window when Luther works up the nerve. He calls after her. “It's no one else, right? Just Klaus?”

“Oh, Klaus is pretty unique on that front,” she says, with an exasperated sigh. "He takes it much too far."

Luther is flooded with relief. He could let it go. But then he says, “Have you ever...done that? You wouldn't, right?”

Allison touches his cheek softly. “Luther, you're such a good and sweet person. You have no idea.”

A warm fluttery feeling rises in his chest. “Thank you,” he says. “That means a lot to me.”

“But,” she says, and Luther winces. Adopted or not, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

“But sometimes you see things in absolutes,” she continues. “It's why you're so good on missions, when Dad points you at an enemy. But the world isn't black and white.” She plays absently with the locket around her neck. “People do what they can to get by. They're more complicated than one decision, or one experience.”

That wasn't an answer, Luther thinks, but he's content to leave it. There's only so much upheaval he can take in one day. For now he'd rather keep some of the world's grey parts out of view.

Two days later, Luther sneaks into Klaus's room.

He remembers the sounds from behind Klaus's door when he was waiting outside. Luther may be naive sometimes, but he's not stupid. It does not take much detective work to find the bag of pills in a balled-up sock in the bottom drawer of Klaus's dresser.

If he runs to his father's office right now with the sock in his hand, he could win back his trust. But then he thinks of Klaus's rage, he thinks of no one trusting Luther with anything. And he decides that maybe he won't tell Dad just yet. Maybe he wants to resolve the question in his heart first.

That week, they have an interview for a magazine spread. As Klaus tries to charm a reporter with a rambling and embellished account of the time he bested a Yakuza hitman in hand-to-hand combat, Luther gives him a dirty look. For all Klaus's talk about hating this life, he is milking this for all it's worth. Luther sees him and the others, Diego and Allison and Ben, wholesome and clean-cut in their school uniforms, flashing wide smiles with bright white teeth as they pose for the photo shoot. None of them are what they appear to be, he thinks. Am I the only who believes in something? Am I the only one who's good?

When they come home, Luther checks the drawer again. There are only four pills left now. He feels a strange relief. It was simple after all. Klaus is a bad guy.

Then he has a stranger thought: I could take one. No one would ever suspect it.

He thinks of the names of drugs in the pamphlets he handed Klaus, ecstasy and LSD and ketamine and amphetamines, and wonders if any of those are in the baggie. What could feel so good that it would be worth throwing your life away? How bad would his life have to get to make the trade worthwhile? Just one pill, and he could join the club of normal teenagers who had normal experiences. Free from Number One and impossible expectations and life-or-death decisions. Such a thin line, so easy to cross, and yet it looms so large. He is not afraid of running headfirst into gunfire, but he is afraid of putting a tiny white circle in his mouth.

In the end, he never dares, and the next time he looks inside the drawer it is empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if it shows, but I had far too much fun with this chapter.


	5. UMBRELLA ACADEMY MISSION #106

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At close to 7700 words, this chapter is a behemoth. A bit nervous about this one! The concept for this mission is inherently gruesome, so if you are squeamish about the Graphic Depictions of Violence tag, you may not want to read anything that happens once they enter the building.
> 
> Also, this fic takes place in the Netflix universe. In this chapter, I try to have my cake and eat it too with comic book references. Before you go, "But that's not at all how X and Y work in the comics," yes, I know. I namedrop comic-only characters and incorporate certain elements from canon, then shamelessly change the rest to make the set-up for this mission work.

**BRIEFING:**

“Why do we even need the bell anymore?” shouts Allison over the ringing. “We're old enough to just come down at seven PM if you tell us to.”

“Speak when spoken to, Number Three!”

Allison is watching their father strangely. “I'm serious,” she says, and there is a challenge in her voice. Like she is testing how far she can push it. “Why?”

For a moment, Sir Reginald looks ruffled, as though this is a question he never anticipated. But he regains his composure. “Do not doubt my methods just because you are too young to understand them,” he says. “Everything about your routine is calibrated for maximum efficiency and order.”

Something spiteful flickers in her eyes. “I heard a—”

His backhand strikes her face.

“If you ever do that again, the bell will be the least of your worries.”

Allison is flinching, clutching her cheek. Luther wants to comfort her (although really, she should have known better), but this is not the place to be open.

The bell is excessive, though. His ears are killing him. Number One stands beside Two and Three, impatient to give their mission briefing. Lives could be at stake if they wait any longer. But he can't until the rest of the team is here.

Ten minutes pass, then fifteen.

“Where's Six?” asks Luther. “Something is wrong.”

“I saw him in his room before I left,” says Diego. “Don't ask me what he was doing.”

“Number One,” says Father. “Fetch your brother and see what the matter is. Remind him that if you live under my roof, you must be present for all missions.”

Luther does not need to ask which brother he means.

As Luther marches up the stairs, Klaus passes him on the way down. “Luther,” he says, eyes unfocused. “Hey! Sorry, I was...a bit busy.” He laughs as though he has told a hilarious joke.

Luther gives his best disapproving look and keeps walking. Right before he arrives at Ben's room, the siren stops. Thank the Lord.

He knocks on the door. There is no answer.

“Ben?” Luther calls out.

He hears what sounds like a strangling mouse inside. Gently, he opens the door.

Ben is sitting on the floor of his bedroom, arms wrapped around himself.

“I'm not coming, if that's why you're here,” says Ben.

“What do you mean?” says Luther. “We can't just opt out of missions.”

“I can't,” he says. He hides his head between his knees.

Luther walks over to him and kneels down. “Hey,” he says. “What's wrong? Are you sick?”

“What's wrong is I can't,” says Ben. His breath is coming in rapid hitches. “I just can't.”

Luther is out of his element. “Uh...breathe. It's okay.” Awkwardly, he touches Ben's arm. “You're going to be fine. I know you can do this.”

“No,” says Ben. “Are you literally not listening to a word I say?”

Luther restrains a sigh. Ben has always been prone to fits of melancholy. Father tells Luther just to let him sulk and get it out of his system when it happens. But they are in a rush, and it's irritating when Ben won't listen to reason.

“Ben, you're an amazing fighter when you try,” he says. “You've saved our lives so many times. But you know why you're Number Six and I'm Number One? Not because I'm more powerful. Because you always handicap your own potential with a negative attitude. Why don't you believe in yourself?”

Ben looks at Luther like he is dumb as a post. Once again, Luther laments his inability to ever say the right thing.

“You know I'm not even a fighter, right?” says Ben. “All I do is stand there.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ben closes his eyes and rests his head against the side of his bed. “It's not me,” he says. “No matter how many times I explain it, no one gets that. You think I just wave my tentacles in the air as if they're my _arms_. It's more...like I open a door, and then whatever comes through is out of my control. Sometimes they'll be agreeable. But other times...” Revulsion crosses his face.

Luther thinks it might be time for a different approach. “Okay. So why can't you come?”

Ben says, “If I come, people will die.”

“That's not true,” says Luther. “It doesn't always end up like that.”

“It'll happen tonight. I can tell.”

Luther can't help smirking. “Ben,” he says, with a shake of his head. “Trust me, it won't this time. I mean it. And even if it were possible, you'd only be killing bad guys.”

“Not always,” says Ben. He hesitates, then looks up at Luther. “Do you remember our mission in Ylebatica?”

“Which one?” asks Luther. They've been to East Kaczorkia multiple times in the past four years. Father has a munitions factory there that doubles as a base of operations in Eurasia.

“You know, they never knew for sure who attacked the embassy,” says Ben. “Did you read the news? East Kaczorkia is such a tiny country that it barely got headlines. But one hundred and sixty people were slaughtered. Found stabbed, strangled, with their necks snapped—only a few were shot. Some were soldiers, but mostly it was diplomats and civil servants. Normal people doing their jobs. The Kaczorkian Unionist Army got blamed in the end. You can bet the Yudonian Federation stopped being so cozy with them after that mess.”

Luther has lost the plot. “So you're not coming on the mission today...because of terrorism?”

“No, don't you understand? We assumed we were fighting terrorists, because we were stupid kids who saw what Dad primed us to see. Afterwards, someone claiming to be from the KUA took credit for the attack, but the leadership itself denied it. There were all these conspiracy theories about what happened. But you know what tipped the scale? Why most experts think the KUA did it?” He swallows. “The car. There's no footage of the attack itself, but a car painted with the emblem of the KUA appeared on the security feeds of buildings close by.”

Ben stops, then gives Luther a look that makes him feel like spiders are crawling up his back. “Do you remember the car we took on the mission that day?”

For just an instant, the room seems to turn cold.

“How should I remember the car we took on one mission years ago?” says Luther, a bit too emphatically. “And what you're saying—it's crazy. Look, I know our father can be...difficult. But even you can't believe he'd do something like that.”

Luther wishes they'd change the subject. Sometimes talking to Ben is like looking at one of those paintings where at first you think it's some sunny pastoral landscape, only then you see in the corner that something is _off_ , like a woman in the background is performing an obscene act or a sheep has two heads.

“Luther,” says Ben, “don't you see? None of us are heroes. We're monsters. We should be locked up. And I'm the worst of all.” He looks down, and Luther realizes that he is staring at his own abdomen. “I feel so disgusting. I'm not even old enough to vote, and I don't know how many people I've—they've...” His shoulders heave, and he buries his head in his hands.

Luther is trying to be sympathetic, but he's starting to get frustrated at the lack of headway he's making. This is not how the story is supposed to go. When characters in a superhero adventure temporarily lose heart, the leader gives them an inspirational pep talk, and then the problem is solved. They regain their confidence just in time to vanquish evil in the third act. Everything becomes clear again, not murkier.

“We've all killed people,” says Luther, “but that doesn't make us monsters. We do it to stop them from taking even more lives.” Inside, though, a foreign worry is gnawing at his mind.

“I don't,” says Ben. “Maybe that's what you tell yourself. But if I really cared about saving lives, I'd have stayed home. Even if Dad tried to tear me kicking and screaming from my bedroom.” His expression is wracked with self-loathing. “Deep down, I knew from the beginning that this was wrong. But I went along with it for years, telling myself to wait until I was eighteen to get out. Because I was afraid of Dad, or afraid of _them_.”

“Them?”

“The...the eldritch horrors,” says Ben, and averts his eyes. “They're like a force of nature. You can't even imagine, Luther. They can devour time itself, as crazy as that sounds. Some of them just emanate pure malice. And once I let one through, I can't shut the door on it any more than I can on a tsunami, or a tornado.”

It's shocking to Luther how much of this is new information. He must have seen Ben unleash the tentacles over a hundred times, but somehow he's never cared to ask how it feels. “So you can open the door, but nothing happens when you try to shut it?”

Ben gives a bitter laugh. “Are you kidding? I don't dare. I just cave and let them have what they want. And today something wants blood. It's at the gates just waiting to break loose.” He starts to shake. “So please don't make me come. Luther, I'm begging you. I can't take more killing.”

Luther can't bring himself to meet Ben in the eyes. “Ben, you know that's impossible,” he says. “But the good news is there's nothing for you to worry about.”

“No,” says Ben desperately, “you don't understand—”

“Ben,” says Luther, clapping him on the shoulder. “Tonight we're fighting robots.”

For a moment, Ben looks like he is about to laugh. “Seriously?”

“Yep,” says Luther. “We can continue this conversation later, okay? But I promise you that not a single human being needs to die. So come on, zip up your jumpsuit.”

“You're not bullshitting me?” says Ben.

“I don't do that,” says Luther.

In a small and shaky voice, Ben says, “It's not only the enemies I'm worried about.”

“Now you're just being paranoid,” says Luther. “They've never hurt you, or us, or ninety-five percent of the innocent bystanders we've encountered.”

Ben takes a deep breath. Nods, and stands.

And Luther could leave it at that. He achieved his objective. But Ben looks so miserable as he gets ready. Luther thinks, I used to be a protector. When is the last time I've protected anyone?

Luther says, “When I was four or five, I killed a puppy. By accident.”

Ben's eyes grow wide.

“I'm serious,” he says. “Remember when one of our nannies brought in puppies because her sister's golden retriever had a litter? I'm the reason it never happened again. Because this one puppy seemed to like me. It kept wagging its tail and licking my hand like it wanted to make friends. And I was excited. We were little kids, and we'd never seen live pets, you know? Only in pictures. I thought it was so cute. So I just...squeezed it.” The memory bubbles to the surface of his mind, and he flinches.

“Luther,” says Ben. “I—I had no idea.”

“For awhile, I was afraid to touch anyone, or anything,” he says. “I felt like a monster too. But Dad told me something that helped a lot. 'Control begets trust, and trust begets control.'”

Ben furrows his brow. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that being afraid of your power only makes it worse. If I worry too much about hurting people, I get in my own head and lose my focus. And that makes it even likelier I misjudge how much force I apply. To control my strength as a kid, I needed to trust that I _could_. So I fought through my fear, and with enough training, I got better at control. Then the trust in myself came naturally. In the end, my power became a friend instead of an enemy.”

“That does sound like the kind of cryptic gibberish Dad would come up with,” says Ben.

“It worked, though. Nothing like that has ever happened to me since.” Then something occurs to Luther. “Tell me, have you tried saying no?”

“To Dad? Of course I have. You know how it goes.”

“I was talking about the creatures,” says Luther. He is excited; he may have just figured out a solution to the problem. “You said you normally just let them get their way, right? Maybe it's time you stood up to them.”

“How?” says Ben. “They're so much stronger than me. They don't have to listen.”

“Ben,” says Luther, “you're a lot stronger than you know.”

Ben looks up, surprised. His expression softens.

“It's your body,” says Luther. “Right now, they kill who they want because you've been letting them for years. But you can set boundaries. This doesn't have to be your life.”

Ben chews on his lip, as though he is mulling it over.

“I'm scared,” he confesses. “I'm their ticket out, so right now they play nice with me. But if I try to stop them...”

“I was scared too,” says Luther. “I still am sometimes. But what's the alternative? They control you forever? To beat them, you need to believe that you can win.”

“Okay,” says Ben. He gives a weak smile. Then he says, “Thank you, Luther.”

Luther smiles back. When something like hope flashes in Ben's eyes, Luther feels better than he has in a long time. Maybe he's a good leader after all.

They head downstairs together. Once they take their places in the line, Sir Reginald says, “I trust you can take care of the briefing, Number One. I have work to be done.” He heads upstairs.

Number One pushes aside his disappointment and begins. “Our mission this evening is to stop the Terminauts.”

“Doctor Terminal is back?” says Three. “I thought that nutcase was still locked up.”

“No, he's still imprisoned in Hotel Oblivion, but some of his dormant robots have reactivated. The Terminauts are programmed to scavenge for human flesh to feed his...” Luther stops. “Four, did you not get enough sleep last night?”

Klaus's head is drooping, and his eyes are half-closed. “Nah,” says Klaus. He blinks, as though trying to snap himself out of a daze. “The mission, uh, caught me at a bad time. Excuse me. I need...to freshen up.”

Out of nowhere, he storms out of line, down to the bathroom in the hall. He slams the door behind him.

Luther lets out a sigh. “As I was saying, the mission. To stay alive, Doctor Terminal needs to absorb human bodies that he can convert into energy. So his robots are now attacking morgues across the city to harvest body parts. Lucky for us, Dad managed to get a GPS tracker planted on one of the Terminauts. It was last spotted at the St. Mary's Hospital mortuary. If we hurry, we can still—”

“Why the hell are we wasting our time on this?” says Diego.

“Excuse me?” says Luther.

“You heard me,” says Diego. He flicks a pocket knife in his hand. “There are five murders and thirty rapes a week in this city. But those crimes aren't flashy enough for Dad. No, instead we're protecting corpses! Aren't there living people we can save instead?”

Number One takes a step forward and gets in Two's face. He is larger and stronger than Two, so he uses that to his advantage to emphasize his point. “Are you questioning Dad's judgment?”

“Dad isn't here,” says Diego. “Even he didn't give two shits about this.”

“No—you don't get it.” Luther is flustered, since it's hard to argue that last point. “They're the Terminauts! Doctor Terminal's dangerous robot henchmen! We can't just let them go free.” He struggles for something else to grasp onto. “And—and it's not like morgues don't have living employees. Morticians, coroners, receptionists...”

Ben's face falls.

“Whatever,” says Diego. “Not like I get a vote on anything in this house.”

Luther pretends not to hear.

“This time, the tactics are simple,” he says. “It's a small building across the street from the hospital, with only one entrance. We can just walk in together and—”

The door to the bathroom swings open. “Hey, guys!” Klaus sings. He is suddenly a lot perkier. “Oh my God. I am so stoked for this mission. I am going to kick ass today. I can feel it.”

Everyone consciously looks in the opposite direction.

“We can just walk in together and head toward the fighting,” says Luther. “The building has a morgue fridge, an examination room, and a small waiting room. That's it.”

Klaus skips into his place in the line. Allison shrinks away. “Ben, what did I miss? Ben!” He grabs Ben and shakes him by the shoulders. Ben could not look more uncomfortable. “Tell me! I want to know what my job is!" Then he laughs. "Whoa, my voice is really loud.”

“You're making a fool of yourself,” says Ben, giving Klaus a stare so withering that even Klaus wilts slightly.

Luther ignores them. “If everyone is ready, let's head out. We've already wasted too much time.”

**THE MISSION:**

To get in more aviation practice, Luther is piloting the helicopter to the hospital. It's more difficult to manoeuvre than a standard airplane, or even Sir Reginald's one-man space pods. Even if it weren't already dark out, he's still inexperienced and hasn't mastered hovering, so it requires his full concentration. The blip on the tracker is still across the street from St. Mary's. Good, so it's not too late.

In the back, Klaus is groaning. “Oh, shit. I think my heart is about to explode.”

“Will you shut the fuck up?” snaps Diego. “I don't want to hear about whatever bad trip you're on.”

“I'm serious, I might be dying.” Klaus is drenched in sweat and fanning his face with his hands. “My brain feels like it's boiling in my skull.”

“There's a water bottle in the hatch,” says Diego. “Drink some and get your shit together.”

Luther tunes them out. An odd question is running through his mind. Is he a monster?

It occurs to him that for someone who tries to save lives, he's killed so many people. He's never thought to question whether they all deserved it. Why would he? If Dad said they were bad guys, that's all there was to it. As children, they were raised to think that was normal. 

Luther knows how to compartmentalize. He runs out into a battlefield, does what he needs to, and then leaves it behind. He's never come home feeling guilty about a kill like Ben or Allison used to, or shivering like Klaus at some gruesome sight. It's as though it all happens to another person. Blood never sticks to his hands. If he starts asking himself if killing art thieves is a worse crime than art theft, or if his victims were even criminals at all, that might change.

Finally, they land on the helipad in front of the hospital. The five of them head across the street and wait in the parking lot of the St. Mary's Hospital mortuary.

Luther points to the door. “Let's get into formation. Two and Three, you stand behind me. Six, you stay at my left. Four, you...” He takes one look at him, then pats him on the shoulder. “Actually, just wait here. You're...the lookout.”

“No, I can fight,” says Klaus. He splashes some of the water from the bottle on his face.

“Go sit down, Klaus,” says Ben, pointing to a bench.

“Okay,” he says, chastened. Then in a tiny voice, “Sorry.”

They head toward the door, but Diego stops. “I'm staying outside,” he says.

“Excuse me?” says Luther.

Diego is observing Klaus closely. “I think our lookout needs a lookout.”

“We need you inside,” says Number One. “We'll be only three people otherwise.”

“Really, two and a half,” adds Number Three. “I can't exactly rumour robots.”

Diego crosses his arms and stands in front of Klaus, as though he expects Luther to attack them or something. “What are you going to do? Drag me with you?”

Luther wants to scream. Four might as well be worth a negative fighter. “Great,” he says. “Knew I could count on you guys.”

“It's fine, Diego,” says Klaus, who is clutching his head as he sits. “I'll be the lookout. You can go ahead. Really.”

In the end, Diego leaves Klaus outside. As they enter the building, Luther says, “Did anyone tell him we're at a morgue?”

“No, and let's hope he doesn't notice,” says Diego.

The mortuary waiting room looks like a doctor's office, albeit with conspicuously more flowers and boxes of tissues. Behind glass panes is a counter where a receptionist should be. But it is unattended.

“It's weirdly quiet,” says Allison.

Luther walks up to the counter.

“Guys,” he says.

They look over. On the floor, behind the desk, is what's left of a woman's torso.

“Here's your murder, Two,” says Luther. He slams his fist on the counter. “We should have hurried.”

Ben shuffles his feet in obvious guilt.

“EXECUTING...ABSORPTION...PROTOCOL.”

The harsh, tinny voice makes them jump. On the other side of the window, the Terminaut wheels itself in.

It has a tinted orange glass dome protecting its head and a sleek tapered steel body. A panel in its front opens. There is the sound of an electric motor humming, and something that looks like a cattle prod extends outward. The prod lights up as its pronged ends touches the torso. Tiny bits of the corpse disintegrate into thin air as though shaved off. It appears to be a slow and tedious process. Luther does not want to know how long it took for the woman to die.

“Do we leave it alone?” says Allison.

Underneath the dome, its metal head rotates, and then they are face-to-face with two gleaming red lights.

“EXECUTING...ATTACK...PROTOCOL.”

“Guess that answers my question,” she says with a sigh.

They spring into action. Diego throws a knife through the gap in the window. It makes a small dent like a fender bender in the Terminaut's body, but glances off.

“I heard a rumour you exploded!” shouts Allison. Nothing happens. “Well, it was worth a try.” The gap is just large enough for her to fit. She squeezes through and pounces on the robot. It is oddly docile as she clings to it, beating on it with her fists. Then she lets her feet touch the ground. With perfect form, she swings her leg in a roundhouse kick. Her boot connects with the robot's centre and sends it flying. Number One says, “Well done, Three!”

It stays in the air.

“Shit,” says Diego.

The Terminaut is hovering higher and higher. Then it extends an arm and shoots a red beam, so hot that Luther can feel its warmth from the other side of the glass. Three ducks, and the glass pane behind her warps and melts. Soon the window folds in half. The barrier gone, the Terminaut flies into the centre of the room.

Blasts are going off in all directions. While Luther dodges left and right, he sees Ben standing there doing nothing.

“Six, a little help?” he says.

Ben looks away. “I'm sorry...it's too dangerous.”

There is no time for Luther to berate him. High-intensity laser blasts leave scorch marks in the walls and furniture. The room is heating up, and Luther's jumpsuit sticks to his body with sweat. He can do nothing when the Terminaut is floating eight feet above his head. Then he has an idea.

“Two,” he says, as they hide behind chairs. “You can throw anything, right?”

“Course,” says Two.

“Well...how about _me_?” says Luther.

Diego scoffs. “Like that would work.”

“What's wrong,” says Luther, “are you not strong enough?”

“Get the hell over here,” says Diego.

Two struggles to lift him, which gives Luther a twinge of satisfaction. “I need to get you at least a foot in the air for it to work. Try jumping as I throw you.”

The moment Luther is in the air, he feels the strangest sensation, as though he is caught in a vortex. His body is rising upward. He is not being thrown so much as _pulled_ toward his destination.

He lands smack into the robot. Clinging on for dear life in the air as it floats. His fist goes straight through the Terminaut's chest, exposing wires and circuit boards. They both crash to the ground.

“That was fun,” says One, as he dusts himself off.

“Mission accomplished?” says Three.

“Let's scout the rest of the building first,” says One. They open the door to the examination room.

Eight more Terminauts are inside.

A man in a lab coat is screaming, backed against a wall by two Terminauts prodding him with their strange devices. There are bloodless holes the size of quarters in his cheeks and arms, as though pieces of his flesh have been surgically removed. Luther wants to gag. Under one of the examination tables, Luther sees a woman hiding. She is also in a lab coat, and she is muffling her sobs.

The door to the morgue fridge is open. Luther can see more robots at work inside, whittling away at the stiff limbs of corpses poking out at crooked angles from the lockers.

Diego throws a knife at one of the robots attacking the man. This time it hits the glass dome. The blade becomes lodged inside, chipping away tiny pieces of glass, but the head is safe. The robot does not react.

“Ben,” says Luther.

“It won't help,” says Ben. “You don't understand.”

Allison runs to the same Terminaut and leaps onto it. Tries to wrench out Diego's knife and break the chipped dome with her bare hands. “I heard a rumour you stopped,” she says in desperation. “I heard a rumour you didn't want to hurt people.” No effect.

“EXECUTING...ATTACK...PROTOCOL.”

“Ben, hurry!” says Luther. He runs over to help Allison, but then a laser beam grazes the side of his wrist. There is a sound like sizzling bacon, and he yelps. His wrist is searing. The sleeve of his jumpsuit is singed, and the skin underneath is raw and lobster red. It will blister later.

“EXECUTING...ATTACK...PROTO—”

“EXECUTING...ATTACK...PROTO—”

“EXECUTING—”

“EXECUTING—”

Around the examination room, hollow metallic voices chime in at intervals, and soon Terminauts are rising, congregating in the sky together beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.

Diego runs to Allison and the screaming man, throwing knives that leave useless hairline fractures in the glass. Then another Terminaut swoops in. Diego and Allison are both cornered. Shots are firing everywhere. One beam sets the examination bed on fire, releasing thick black smoke. The woman underneath starts coughing. As she tries to escape, another blast of energy hits her leg. She shrieks, crawling away. Luther cannot save them all at once.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” yells Luther at Ben. Searing waves of pain are shooting up through his arm to his brain, and the smoke is stinging his eyes and lungs. “You don't want people to die? They're dying now because you're such a coward.”

“EXECUTING...TERMINATION...PROTOCOL.”

“There's no choice, is there?” says Ben sadly.

With resignation, he unzips the pouch in the front of his jumpsuit that is unique to Six's uniform. Then he closes his eyes and shudders. The portal opens.

The creature's legs burst through like foam from a shaken soda bottle.

Before Luther can track them, there is a crash. More smoke billows upward from the wreckage of the two Terminauts who were attacking Diego and Allison.

The other robots are quick to react to the new threat. They stop their scavenging immediately and swarm Six.

“EXECUTING...ATTACK...PROTOCOL.” The Terminauts fire at Ben, but the tentacles fling themselves in front of the blasts. Such martyrs, Luther thinks. Little burns appear on their slimy skin. The tentacles thrash more violently. As they cut through the smoke, they smash robot after robot to smithereens.

Soon the last of the Terminauts is gone. On the floor, the employees in lab coats do not seem to have noticed. The man is still screaming, and the woman is still sobbing. The sprinklers have activated. Luckily, the examination bed was not built for the comfort of its occupants and is mostly metal, so the fire is burning itself out.

Luther finds the cool water a welcome relief. He lets it run through his hair, raises his wrist and winces as it cleans out his burn. He wants to say to Ben, see, that wasn't so bad. Luther barely registers one of the tentacles poking inquisitively at the wounds in the screaming man's face, brushing his skin as it travels down. Nothing seems out of the ordinary until he notices the room is quieter. The man's screams have become wheezes. His face is red. Around his neck, the tentacle is coiled tightly.

“I told you it wouldn't help,” says Ben. “You didn't believe me.”

“Fight them!” shouts Luther. “Please. Don't just let this happen!” When Ben does not react, One blurts out, “That's an order, Six!”

Ben reacts as if struck. For a moment, Luther sees the hurt on his face and expects him to refuse. But then he nods and stands straight. He furrows his brow in deep concentration.

“Stop,” he says.

Another appendage stretches out toward the crawling woman. It wraps itself around her wounded leg, making her scream. Then it spins her in the air. Swings her around and around like a slingshot and then lets go, sending her flying into a wall. Ben flinches.

“I mean it,” says Ben. “Stop!”

The tentacles freeze, and at first Luther thinks it worked. But at once, they whip around in renewed frenzy, almost as if they're angry. Suddenly, one comes straight for Luther. It hits him like a truck. He is shoved across the room. Gasping, toppling backward. He can't breathe, his chest is screaming. He knows how strong it must be, for it to hurt like this. Someone else would have died.

The creature is lifting Allison by her wet hair until she is hanging midair, and she yelps in pain as it yanks at her scalp. Grabbing Diego's foot and dangling him upside down. The man in the lab coat's face is now purple.

“Now I've done it,” says Ben, covering his face. “I'm so sorry. I crossed a line, and they're taking it out on you guys.”

It's hard to talk, with how much breathing hurts. “Ben, you can beat them!” Luther chokes out.

Ben turns to him and smiles. It is the kind of smile that can burn itself into Luther's mind for the rest of his life.

“This ends right now!”

Six stomps his foot. Luther has never seen Ben this determined. As he stands defiantly in the smoke and water, for once he doesn't look like a stranger in his own body.

The portal narrows, and the tentacles grow taut, as though they are being bunched into a bouquet at the end. Their grip on the strangled man relaxes just enough for him to draw in a raspy breath. But then they flex, and the portal is ripped open, wider than before. Ben cries out. He scrunches up his face and takes deep breaths as though he is in pain.

“No,” Ben whispers. “Let them go.” He claws at the tentacles with his hands, trying to rip them out. They might as well be tree trunks for all the good it does. Ben drops to the floor, starts twisting and rolling over on his stomach to wrench them away. The tentacles jerk around, and Diego and Allison scream as they are tossed in the air, dangling like puppets on strings.

“I need...to close it,” says Ben, getting on his knees. The opening in his stomach contracts and expands over and over, a battle of wills. Luther is so proud of his brother. He wants to cheer Ben on, tell him he almost has it. And he tells himself it's his imagination that the portal has grown in size. Maybe it's not shrinking as fast as he hoped, but at least Ben is holding the fort.

“Ben!” screams Luther, ignoring the sharp pain in his chest when he shouts. “Don't give up!”

But now the diameter stretches out from above Ben's sternum to below his hip bone. It's bigger, there's no denying it. And Luther sees the outline is ringed with blood. Luther feels sick. The portal is wide enough that for the first time, he gets a glimpse through the creature's splayed limbs of what is inside. A white beach and a black ocean and...

The thing is looking back at Luther with thousands of yellow eyes. It opens its mouth, and bares teeth longer than Luther is tall.

In that moment, Luther realizes the magnitude of his error. He thought all Ben needed was willpower and a positive attitude. That everything could be solved if Ben pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. But Ben is a boy. Just shy of seventeen and soft and small for his age. A boy who's braver than Luther ever realized, better than Luther could ever be, but still human, vulnerable to fear and pain. This creature is something beyond human conception. Ben is an ant standing up to a supernova. This is not a fair fight. And Luther bullied him into it without having a clue of the stakes. How could Luther have ever expected him to win?

Ben looks at Luther with such a sweet and trusting expression, as though all he needs is Luther's reassurance that it'll all work out. But his face is a sickly poisoned colour. Horror is slowly dawning on Luther. Something is happening that cannot be undone.

“Luther,” Ben is whimpering, “it hurts,” and Luther sees a bubble of blood at the corner of his mouth.

Then a blast of light, and Diego and Allison and the strangled man fall to the floor. A shadow of something enormous scuttles out before disappearing. There is a sound like fabric tearing, so quick that there is no time for Ben to scream.

**DEBRIEFING:**

They need to get home. An ambulance is coming for the critically injured morgue employees, but the Umbrella Academy must take care of its own. Luther has been trained on the protocol for a situation like this. Casualties are to be recovered and brought back to the mansion. Father always said it was unlikely, but best be safe. How fortunate that Luther was so diligent in preparing for all scenarios.

Diego and Allison grab Klaus, who asks, “aren't we forgetting—” and then stops when he sees Luther carrying his—carrying his—he can't. Sounds from a hundred miles away do not travel from his ears to his brain. Everything is underwater. The others are loitering, shell-shocked, but he presses on. He needs to pilot the helicopter. No one else can.

Open the throttle to increase the rotor speed. Gently pull the collective up, raising the swash plate assembly. He has never been in this much physical or emotional pain. Depress the left pedal to counteract the torque of the main rotor. Taking off requires perfect focus. He must balance the thrust of the main and tail rotors, sense just when to pull or release the cyclic and pedals and collective, correct for any change in pressure or else the machine crashes to earth. There is no room for lapses in judgment or coordination.

In the back he hears more than one person crying. Lucky them, he thinks, to have that luxury.

They land on the helipad in the courtyard of the mansion. He leaves the...he leaves Ben in the helicopter. The scents of blood and smoke cling to him.

Pogo opens the door for them. Takes one look at the four of them, and slumps. His back hunches over, as though he has aged a decade in a minute.

“I...I shall fetch your father,” he says.

They enter the lobby. Not two hours have passed since they were last here.

No one says a word. They stand apart as though they are islands. Diego keeps sniffling and turning his back to the others to hide his face. Allison stares at the floor with dull red-rimmed eyes. Klaus is wailing, collapsed in a heap on the ground. Instead of making Luther sympathetic, it gets on his frayed nerves. Why does Klaus get to carry on like that, when he isn't the one who—the one who...

Maybe Luther is not only bulletproof on the outside. Maybe his heart has a shell of armour that keeps him standing when everyone around him crumbles.

“What is the meaning of this?” says Father, his voice a whip.

Everyone turns to Luther, eyes accusing.

He is the leader. He needs to speak for them all.

“It's Ben,” he says.

His father grows still.

“What did you do, Number One?” he whispers.

It is more than Luther's defences can take. Luther's vision is getting blurry—he holds it in. He needs to be strong. He squeezes his eyes shut. Takes a shuddering breath.

“He killed him!” screams Diego, and the second barrage is even harder to withstand. “I saw. He told Ben to resist the monsters. Ben didn't want to, but he forced him!”

He can't think about it now. Tries not to let Diego's words penetrate his walls, to stand straight and be a rock.

“I see,” says his father, and for a moment the man looks lost. He opens his mouth, then closes it. Luther scrutinizes his father's face. Behind the monocle perched on his nose, is his eye glistening? There is certainly an emotion somewhere in there. It's not quite the right one, but Luther decides it'll do.

“We shall discuss what happened later,” says Dad. “For now, see that Grace tends to your wounds. I shall...make the necessary arrangements.”

Mom has joined them, wearing an incongruously bright smile and carrying a tray with glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. “Hello, my dears!” she says. “Who wants some refreshments after a hard day's work?”

Klaus lets out a sob. Dad kneels over Klaus's prone form, then slaps him across the face.

“For Heaven's sake, Number Four,” he says. “You're supposed to be a man. Pull yourself together! Number Six would not want to see you in hysterics.”

Klaus blinks. Clutches his face. Then stands abruptly. Without saying a word, he turns around. He is stumbling to the entrance of the mansion, still sobbing. The front door slams behind him as he walks out.

“Where is he going at a time like this?” says Luther.

Allison looks away and says, “Where do you think he's going?”

“Leave him,” says their father. “I will waste no more energy on that boy.”

Grace says, “Shh, your mother is here.” She is holding Diego while balancing the tray, stroking his hair with her free arm as he is shaking, burying his face in her chest.

Allison is not crying anymore. Her eyes are cold and hard as rocks. She walks up to their father.

“You don't care,” says Allison.

Their father's expression is unreadable. “Number Three, I understand that given the situation, you are emotionally unstable right now. Perhaps you should go to sleep and reconsider your behaviour in the morning.”

She locks onto him with a stare. “I see right through you.”

“Number Three,” their father continues, and now his anger is apparent, “I suggest you shut your mouth while I am still inclined to show you leniency.”

She doesn't budge. Luther is frightened by the change in Allison. What's new is not the dislike or even the hatred when she looks at Dad. It is the lack of deference, as though she sees him as beneath her. Their father takes a step back, and Luther wonders who is the one with the power in this exchange.

After a long silence, their father turns his back to her. “Number One, come see me in my office once your injuries are treated,” he says, and leaves.

Luther feels his throat close up. He knows what is coming.

Mom sends him off with pain meds once she treats the burns on his wrist and X-rays his chest (two broken ribs, but no internal injuries). He looks for any excuse to dally longer. He heads into the shower and stands motionless under the scalding hot water for close to an hour. Not scrubbing, just letting it wash over him. The drain turns red. When he is dressed, he stands outside his father's study. It is awhile before he can bring himself to knock.

To his surprise, Vanya is there as well. She is sitting on a chair in the corner, violin case on her lap. He can tell instantly she doesn't know.

“Number One,” says Dad, “tell your sister and me, in your own words, what happened on the mission this evening.”

Luther speaks in a cold, flat voice. He is clinical and omits no detail. When he gets to Ben's death, Vanya starts to tremble. She fumbles for a pill container in her pocket and swallows one.

“Thank you,” says his father. There is a long and terrible silence. Luther hunches over, preparing himself for the worst.

Then he says, “Number One, you mustn't blame yourself.”

Luther is taken aback. Even Vanya looks shocked.

“Ben's war with the darkness inside him was always unwinnable. I'm afraid it was only a matter of time. It's a tragedy it happened so early, before he could play the part he was meant to. But the past cannot be unwritten. No, we'll have to...adapt.”

“I called him a coward,” says Luther. And he begins to shake.

“You did your best,” says his father. “Leaders must make decisions that have heavy consequences.”

Luther swallows the lump in his throat.

“They think I don't care,” says Dad. “They'll never understand. Do you think I won't mourn the loss of that boy? For practical reasons if nothing else? That I don't wish Five were still here? But we're insects in the grand scheme of things. Our lives have no meaning individually.” Father stirs his drink, something hard and remote in his eyes. “A word of advice, Number One. This will pass. The first death of a loved one tears a piece of your soul out. But a soul can only lose so many pieces before it ceases to exist. By the trillionth death, one becomes less sentimental.”

Then in a completely different tone, he barks, “Number Seven!”

“Y-yes?” whispers Vanya.

“Have you been practising the partita you were assigned?”

“Do you mean the Lutoslawski?”

“Heavens, no! Not that cacophony. I don't believe anything worthwhile has been composed after 1910. I mean Bach's Partita No. 2 in D minor.”

“I....well, only the first section.”

Their father lets out an exasperated sigh. “You mean to say you haven't made it to the Chaconne? Well, the Allemande will do. Do you know it without the sheet music? Play it for us.”

She nods, and then opens her violin case.

“Someone I once knew loved this piece,” says Dad.

The first bars waft through the study. His father closes his eyes, as though he has been transported to another planet. Vanya messes up a few times, and snot and tears drip as she plays. But even with the interruptions, Luther is transfixed. Vanya's music tutors have always criticized her playing as inexpressive. Tonight each strike of her bow can wrench blood from a stone. Whether she is injecting more of herself into the music or the circumstances have made Luther more sensitive to it, he cannot tell.

“Music is balm for the soul,” says Father. “Man has never created a better medicine for grief.”

In every note, Ben is with him. Luther tries to remember everything, good and bad. His dry jokes, even the ones at Luther's expense. His sullen moods and apathy. His moral compass. His willingness to show an earnest, vulnerable side, so rare in a family that has killed all traces of earnestness and vulnerability in themselves years ago. Dad is right that it helps. By listening to Vanya's playing, he can let feelings wash over him that he would never express out loud.

“I trust this will not affect your performance on missions,” says Father.

Luther stiffens. “No, sir.”

His face contorts into an approximation of a smile. “You always were my favourite.”

Vanya's bow screeches. “I'm sorry for the error, Father,” she says. Right before she picks up where she left off, Luther catches her looking his way. For just a split second, he thinks his sister might hate him, but he dismisses it as crazy.

Ugly as the night has been, Luther will clutch onto this memory whenever he needs to stoke the embers of his faith in his father again. It is a miracle, proof of the existence of a remote deity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, everyone knew this was coming. I think Ben dropped something like five death flags per page in this chapter. And when this fic is over, I will need to write an essay explaining what the hell I'm doing with Reginald's character.
> 
> Polite concrit is welcome, since this chapter was far out of my writing comfort zone. Let me tell you, it's very hard to strike the right tone in a death scene that involves a flesh-eating robot vs. tentacle monster battle culminating in someone fighting with his own stomach.


	6. UMBRELLA ACADEMY MISSION #109

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on pseudo-incest: I've been writing Luther and Allison's interactions such that you can choose to read it as a platonic sibling relationship, albeit the kind that gets a few strange looks. This is definitely the chapter in which the looks would get the strangest. I have complicated thoughts on this pairing that I'll summarize as, "It's canon and important to their characters, and I have zero desire to delve into the psychology of how trauma bonding and limited interaction with the outside world make the whole 'adopted sibling' thing NOT a dealbreaker for them, so I guess I'm just rolling with it!"

**BRIEFING:**

When Luther heeds the call of the siren at noon, he is the first one downstairs.

This is their first mission since his broken ribs have fully healed, so he is excited to get back in the thick of combat instead of giving instructions from the sidelines that everyone ignores. If only the rest of his team showed the same enthusiasm.

Then his father and Pogo arrive. As they wait, their father takes his pocket watch out and frowns.

Finally, Two swaggers down the stairs. Instead of heading into formation, he leans against the banister and starts twirling a jagged knife menacingly in his hand. It feels like a threat, and from the way Diego keeps shooting him dirty looks, Luther wonders if he's the target.

A few minutes later, Three appears, blocking her ears with her fingers as she descends. Today she has applied a full face of makeup. She strides over to their father.

“Number Three,” says their father, “no cosmetics are permitted on—”

“I heard a rumour you turned the bell off,” says Allison, with venom. “I heard a rumour you smashed the controller to bits and disabled the alarm forever. Then I heard a rumour you stayed in your office and didn't show your ugly face until tomorrow.”

Their father freezes, then with stiff movements grabs the remote out of Pogo's hand. With a flip of the switch, the siren stops. He throws the controller to the ground and stomps on it, over and over again. The sight of their icy, dignified father acting like a child splashing in a puddle is jarring.

“Miss Allison, was that necessary?” says Pogo, before he chases after Sir Reginald.

“If I heard that thing one more time, I was going to murder someone,” says Allison.

“Let's stop complaining,” says Luther. He puffs out his chest and stands straighter. “We need to stay focused on the mission.”

Allison stiffens. “Fine.” She turns her back, but Luther realizes with a sinking feeling that she's rolling her eyes at him.

Lately, there has been a strange energy to Allison. She's bitter and sarcastic in a way she never used to be.

They stand in blessed silence in the entrance.

“Well, I'm not waiting any longer,” says Luther. “This mission is an easy one. We're just stopping bank robbers—”

“That's a throwback,” says Diego. “Almost makes me nostalgic.”

“Makes a change from mad scientists and paramilitary units,” says Luther. Privately, Luther is disappointed—he didn't dare complain to Father, but bank robbers should be beneath their pay grade. They are not twelve years old anymore.

Their father passes by, carrying a ladder and a pair of pliers. He sets up the ladder nearby and climbs it, humming to himself. Luther watches him reach behind the siren on the wall and snip the cables.

“Allison, he's going to kill you tomorrow,” says Luther, as their father heads back to his office, eyes still milky white.

“I don't care anymore,” she says, a hysterical edge in her voice.

Luther sighs. “Anyway, someone at the bank botched protocol. It was a five-man takeover robbery, but a teller got caught pressing the panic button. Now police have the place surrounded and there's a hostage situation.”

“Right, so let's hurry,” says Diego.

“Not yet,” says Luther. “We need to discuss tactics.”

Diego laughs. “What tactics? It's five on four. They don't have powers. We just fight them.”

“It's important!” he insists. “Three and I will head in first. Two, you grab Four and sneak in through the exit in the back alley to catch them off guard. We want to have surprise reinforcements in case—”

“Sorry,” says Diego, walking over with a smug grin like he knows he's about to rile Luther up. “I forgot you need to feel like you're in charge.”

Instead of giving him the reaction he wants, Luther meets his challenge. “Well, maybe I am in charge. And it's time you learned to deal with it.”

The knife slices the air millimeters from Luther's head. A lock of his hair falls to the ground.

“Kill me now,” says Allison.

“Enough,” says Luther. “We don't have time for this. At any moment they could—”

Luther stops.

Klaus is standing at the top of the stairs, still in pyjamas.

“I'm here for the mission,” he says.

No one says a word, or takes a breath.

Klaus makes it three steps down.

Diego says, “Shit,” and springs into action. Climbing the stairs two at a time, he heads up to where Klaus has fallen. He kneels down and whispers something to Klaus, helps him stand. Then Diego takes him by the shoulders and leads him with a surprising gentleness back up the stairs.

After they are gone, there is an awkward silence. Luther feels the need to break it.

“Unbelievable,” he says to Allison. “He can't stay sober for a—”

“Luther, can you not?” She is looking up the empty stairwell, her forehead knotting in tension.

He feels himself deflate. Neither of them speaks again.

A few minutes later, Diego comes downstairs alone. “Let's go,” he says.

“What about Klaus?” asks Luther.

Diego gives him an incredulous look. “Are you crazy? He's not coming.”

Luther hesitates, then says, “Dad says if you live in this house, you go on missions.”

“Do you have fucking ice water in your veins?” screams Diego. “You want to send him out like that? How many dead brothers are enough for you?”

Luther represses a flinch. He refuses to show Diego weakness.

“Diego,” says Allison, “you know we can't cover for him.”

“Of course you're on his side.”

“This has nothing to do with sides,” she says. “Dad will find out. Then what? Klaus is already on thin ice.”

“I told Mom that Klaus is very sick,” says Diego. “Which is the truth.”

Luther is indignant. “How is it sick if he does it to himself? I guess I know what to do next time I want to sleep in. I'll just drink a bottle of poison right before the mission and tell Dad I can't come, I'm too sick. I bet you'd all love that.”

Diego looks Luther straight in the eye. “Please drink a bottle of poison,” he says. “I promise I won't complain.”

“Can you both just stop?” says Allison. “Let's go. But Diego, you know it's only delaying the inevitable. This is going to happen again, and when it does, Dad will throw him out on the street.”

**THE MISSION:**

Pogo meets them out front with the limousine. When he asks where Master Klaus is, Diego rushes in before Luther can say a word. “He's not feeling well today.”

Judging from Pogo's disapproving frown, Luther wonders who Diego thinks he's fooling.

As the car zips down the road at breakneck speed, they say nothing. Diego is visibly agitated. He keeps fiddling with his knife holster and bouncing his leg up and down in his seat. Every so often he scowls at Luther and Allison.

“Scrap the old plan,” says Luther. “Let's stay together when we enter. Since apparently the Umbrella Academy has only three members now.”

“Well, next time don't kill one—”

“Leave him alone, Diego!” shrieks Allison, and her hand flies protectively to Luther's shoulder.

Luther stares out the window. For just a moment, something squeezes his throat, and he is short of breath.

“It's fine, Allison,” he says, doing his best to look indifferent, even amused. “Let him think I'm the bad guy.” He lets out a bitter laugh. “Of course, everything's my fault. I'm always to blame for whatever goes wrong. But if Klaus messes up, it's fine for Diego! No, Klaus can get away with murder, and Diego thinks it's just part of our job to pick up the slack for him.”

“Luther,” says Allison, “let's just drop this.”

“Why? You both know this isn't fair. I don't know why no one else is willing to admit it. Why are we the only ones expected to put our lives in danger? The same set of rules should apply to everyone. Klaus should be here.”

Luther expects Diego to lash out again, but instead he only looks sad.

“None of us should be here,” says Diego softly. “And Klaus should be in a hospital.”

For a few minutes, there is silence.

Then Diego lets out a yell. He punches the seat in front of him. Punches it again.

“This is all bullshit,” he says, almost in surprise. “Everything about this is bullshit.”

Allison stares at the floor of the car.

It is a relief when Pogo finally parks and lets them off, three blocks away from the bank. Their winter combat uniforms provide only minimal protection against the cold, so they are shivering as they run down the street. When they sprint past the police line, the cops wave. By now, they're on a first-name basis with most of them.

“All right,” says Luther, “on the count of three, we break in. One...”

Diego rolls his eyes. He is climbing up an ivy-covered trellis in front of the bank.

“What the hell are you doing?” Luther calls up.

“What does it look like?” says Diego. “Climbing through the window.”

Luther is about to lose his mind. “No you...no you can't. Hey! Get back here!”

Diego ignores him. In his winter coat, Diego does not look dressed for this, and he is clearly struggling, but that does not seem to stop him.

“Looks like we have no choice,” says One. “Three, as soon as he breaks in, that's our cue to attack.”

Luther fidgets as he stands outside, watching Diego recede into the sky. He hates not having control of what is happening.

Waiting is always the worst part.

There is the crash of glass shattering. Then they hear a scream. “Stay back,” he says to Allison, and kicks the door open.

The bank is small, although the interior is gussied up with faux-classical arches and pillars everywhere. In the back along the wall, twenty people are sitting on their knees, hands above their heads. They are guarded by two armed robbers who do not look much older than Luther and his siblings. And to Luther's surprise, robbers and hostages alike are...laughing?

He turns to see where they are all looking.

The high window has no ledge, and the ceiling of the bank is twenty feet high. When Diego smashed into it with all his strength and leapt through, gravity took its course. Now he is lying on the ground, face down and bleeding from his nose, surrounded by shards of glass. A robber is holding a gun to Diego's temple while another unhooks his knife holster.

“Don't say it,” hisses Diego. Even through Diego's domino mask, Luther can tell that he's on the receiving end of a death glare.

“Stay back!” Suddenly, there is a man by the door, pointing a small handgun at Luther and Allison.

How cute, a gun, Luther thinks. But there is no time to analyze. He rushes forward. On instinct, he attacks.

He launches himself upon the gunman. When his fist slams into his chest, he hears a crack, then a scream, and Luther feels the man's rib cage crumple like paper. His fist tears through him and comes back painted red—

—and Ben is crying out in pain, clutching his torn stomach, scared and betrayed like a lamb who is realizing his shepherd brought him to the slaughter. Everything is red, the floor and Luther's vision and his hands, his clothes.

Time stops. The enemy falls forward, limp as a rag doll and spurting blood onto Luther's clothing. He jerks away. He is so cold. His hands and face are numb. Luther, fight, he thinks. Snap out of it. Let your body go on autopilot. In his head is a deafening static, drowning out all sounds except for the thrum of his own heartbeat.

“What's wrong with you?” says Diego.

The man with Diego's knife holster has been running over to Luther, but stops at the sight of what Luther has done to his companion. The blood drains from his face. Now the two guards are sprinting toward the back, while the last man wildly swings his gun back and forth between Luther and Diego as though he can't decide where to aim.

“I—,” says Luther. He tries to attack the man with the knife holster. Swings his clumsy arms, misses. Suddenly his mind can't access all the martial arts techniques that by now have become muscle memory, all the tae kwon do and krav maga and jujutsu moves their father had them drill thousands of times. He has gotten inside his own head. Nothing is connecting, he's lost his rhythm. If Luther hits him, the man is dead, but Luther can't hit him.

The gun is at Diego's temple again. “If you move, I'll shoot him!” says Diego's gunman, seeming to settle on this option as the one that gives him more leverage.

Luther freezes, grateful to stay put. The world is spinning. He needs to sit down. He needs to get out of this room right now. The man with the knife holster is running away. “Diego,” he says, but can't even finish his sentence. Why is there no oxygen in here?

In the corner of his eye, he sees the door to the emergency exit swing open. Luther tries to collect himself. He scans the room. All the robbers are gone, except for Diego's gunman and the one lying far too still by the entrance in a pool of blood.

“They took the money,” says Luther. He wants to scream into an empty closet somewhere.

“They took my knives!” wails Diego, looking crushed.

When the last man sees that he is alone, he looks terrified. Up close, the robber is young and emaciated, with a scabbed face and desperate eyes. Luther thinks he looks like someone who would break his own arm for twenty dollars.

“No one has to get hurt if you let me go,” says the robber. Given the way he is quivering, his bravado is transparently false.

Throughout this, Allison has been standing at the door, not moving a muscle.

“Allison,” says Luther, “you've got this.”

She walks forward, and the man seems to sense that he is at a disadvantage. He starts taking steps backward, pointing his gun at her.

The gun removed from his head, Diego tries to stand as well, but he lets out a cry of pain when he puts weight on his right leg. Judging by his stance, it looks sprained or broken.

“Get away from me,” says the gunman. “I'll do it.” But Allison ignores his weapon and looks him dead in the eye.

“I heard a—,” starts Allison.

Then she takes a good look at the robber. Her eyes fall upon the gun in his shaking hand.

She starts laughing.

“What are you waiting for?” shouts Luther. “Hurry!”

Then she turns her back to him. She starts walking. She is still laughing as she heads toward the entrance.

“Allison, stop!” Luther calls after her. “He's going to—”

The front door of the bank swings shut behind her. The kid looks amazed by his good luck, but he wastes no time bolting out the fire exit.

Luther beats his fists on the ground. “Allison!” he is screaming. “Come back, Allison!” He knows he should be chasing after the robbers, but right now he can't bring himself to move. He wants to sink into the floor.

The hostages are getting to their feet now. A few of them are sobbing, holding each other, while one is throwing up into a trash can. He hears a little boy whisper to his mother, “Is that the Umbrella Academy? I thought they were supposed to be strong.” Luther thinks they could show a bit more gratitude.

“Luther,” says Diego, pointing to the ground. “Look.”

The man whose chest Luther has torn apart is still lying on the floor. It becomes clear he will never rise again. Beside him, where Diego is pointing, is his weapon. Luther looks more closely.

It is a plastic gun, the kind sold in toy stores. The orange cap on the barrel has been coloured over with black marker.

**DEBRIEFING:**

It is dark when Luther and Diego get back to the lonely mansion. Two of the robbers were apprehended by the cops surrounding the perimeter, but two more are still on the loose, and over thirteen thousand dollars in cash has not been recovered. While Diego went to the city hospital, Luther had to do damage control all day, both with the media (who are having a field day over this fiasco) and with the police (who are now investigating whether a bulletproof seventeen-year-old with super strength had cause to use lethal force against men with toy guns). Thanks to Sir Reginald's political wrangling, the Umbrella Academy is technically considered law enforcement and thus gets a lot of leeway on casualties, but they can't rely on Sir Reginald's backdoor dealing and palm-greasing when he is still imprisoned by Allison's rumour.

Neither of them have seen Allison since she left.

“That was a shitshow,” says Diego. His leg is now bandaged and placed in a splint. “If you'll excuse me, I'm going to check if our idiot brother is still alive.” He limps up the stairs.

Luther feels as though he is holding a dying baby bird in his palm, and if he does not feed it now, it will starve.

“Wait!” calls Luther.

Diego stops midway, annoyed. “What the hell do you want now?”

“I was just thinking,” says Luther tentatively. “It's been a rough day, and maybe it might be nice if...” He stops. He is nervous as he looks up at his brother. “What if...what if we all went to Griddy's tonight? You know, for old times' sake.”

Diego spins around and says, “I would rather shove my Bowie knife up my own asshole.”

As Diego hobbles off, Luther feels a pang of loss. One more thing in this family has turned to ash. Some days Luther thinks they live inside a funeral urn.

“Hey.”

Luther turns. Allison is there, still in her uniform from the mission.

“Where have you been all day?” asks Luther.

“Home,” she says. Then, “You still up for Griddy's? I'll go with you later.”

It's not quite an apology, but for the first time today, Luther smiles. “Thank you.”

After he has changed out of his uniform into street clothes, he waits downstairs. He sees Vanya in the parlour, gritting her teeth as she practises her violin with a frightening intensity. For a moment he considers inviting her, but right now he'd kind of prefer to talk to Allison alone.

“I'm ready,” says Allison, and Luther is almost intimidated. Her outfit could have been clipped from a magazine catalogue. She is wearing a scarf, a beret, a cashmere sweater, heeled leather boots and what must be a designer skirt. Everything is colour-coordinated down to her earrings and nail polish.

“It feels like ages since we've gone to Griddy's together,” says Luther. “Let's head out.” As they fetch their coats, he notices Vanya storming upstairs. Luther wonders what her deal is.

“I heard that Los Angeles gets sixty-degree weather in December,” says Allison, as they walk down the icy street lined by Christmas lights. The air is sharp and crisp. “Wouldn't that be the life? Soaking up the sun all year?”

Luther frowns. He doesn't care about Los Angeles. “Allison,” he says. “What happened today?”

She says, “It doesn't matter.”

“You walked out of a mission,” says Luther. “That's something Klaus would do, but it's not like you.”

Allison's mouth becomes a thin line. “Maybe you don't know me, Luther.”

They walk together in silence. When they get to Griddy's, Luther holds the door for her. “After you.”

As she breezes past him, Luther realizes that she smells like cigarettes.

She heads to the counter and whispers something to the cashier. She comes back with eighteen assorted doughnuts, two strawberry milkshakes, a box of croissants, and an entire cherry pie. They sit on opposite sides of the booth.

“Luther,” says Allison, “we need to get out.”

“What do you mean?” says Luther. “We are out.”

Allison frowns. “No. Don't you get it?”

Luther does not, in fact, get it. He's tired of everything being communicated with glances and shifts of posture. “Explain it to me like I'm stupid.”

“Luther, this is a ticking time bomb,” she says. “Sooner or later, we'll go on a mission and someone else won't come back. We're dropping like flies. And Dad won't stop until we're all dead.”

There is a heavy pause. “I know that,” he says, staring into his milkshake. “But there's nothing we can do.”

She shakes her head. “It doesn't have to be this way.”

“What's your suggestion, Allison?” says Luther. “We stop fighting crime?”

“As a matter of fact, Luther, _yes_. That is my suggestion.”

“We can't,” says Luther. “The world needs us.” But the words sound rote and hollow even to himself.

“The world managed before we got here,” says Allison. “And are we even making a positive difference? I don't know. Some days, I think it's a wash.”

Luther is silent for a long time. Allison is starting to remind him of Ben, and that brings up awful associations. He cleaned Ben's blood off his body long ago, but sometimes he thinks it has seeped through his pores and become embedded in his DNA.

“We still have to try,” he says. “We can't just let robbers escape.”

“There are worse things than stealing,” says Allison. “I stole those doughnuts you're eating, and you don't seem to mind.”

Luther stops mid-bite. “That's...come on, that's different.” But suddenly, the doughnut tastes sour. “Anyway, it's a moot point. Dad would never let us stop.”

Allison says nothing. She avoids meeting his eyes.

“Allison,” says Luther, “you can't mean...”

“That house, it's like a vampire. It sucks the joy and goodness out of everything. We're all becoming the worst versions of ourselves. I can't breathe there anymore. Not since Ben. I need to get as far away as possible.”

“We're barely seventeen,” says Luther, and his throat catches.

“That's old enough to get a job,” says Allison. “And you know that with my powers, I could get any job I want.”

“But Allison, what would we do with ourselves if we're not superheroes? We'd stop being _us._ ”

“I'm not sure yet,” says Allison. “I know I want to do something big. Something for myself alone.” There is a faraway look in her eyes. “I keep getting offers of representation from talent agents, you know? For modelling or acting. Since I'm already a public figure. So that's one option. But whatever I choose, the sky's the limit.”

“Allison, that can't be what you really want,” says Luther. “I know how caring you are. You're always looking out for other people, trying to help them. Would you really be satisfied with a completely selfish life?”

She shakes her head at that. “Luther, I'm through living my life for others. Just once, I want to do what makes _me_ happy.” She pauses. “Have you ever considered doing the same?”

Luther is caught off guard. “What do you mean? This—this does make me happy.”

“Does it?” says Allison. She looks sad. “You know, I always thought you were the person in this family who adjusted the best to our childhood, but now I wonder. Maybe you're the one it damaged most of all.”

“That's ridiculous,” says Luther. “I mean. None of us are damaged. Obviously. And even if we were, you can't say I'm the worst. Compared to the others, you and I are the sane ones.” It seems self-evident. He doesn't have a weird knife fetish and anger issues, or spend all day drinking and taking God knows what else, or obsessively practise an instrument for hours instead of talking to anyone.

“At least everyone else can move on,” she says. “Can you?” Then she laughs bitterly. “God, Dad really did a number on our heads.”

“We should be more grateful,” says Luther. “He did the best he could.”

“No, Luther,” says Allison. He does not understand why she is looking at him with such pity. “He didn't. Isn't it obvious?”

And it's true that aspects of their upbringing could have been improved. Luther likes to believe he's an objective person, and he can't deny that objectively, certain things Dad has said and done should never have been said or done. But it's not that simple. Luther has only one father.

“Why did I do it?” asks Allison, more to herself than to Luther. “The rest of you were scared kids with nowhere else to go. But what was my excuse? Why did I even care what he thought of me? I could've had anything I wanted. And I still let Dad turn me into a killer.” Her face scrunches in disgust. “So stupid. I'd use my power to eat a second cookie for dessert and tell myself I was such a rebel. But when it came to the big things, Dad had me wrapped around his finger.” She is absently ripping up a napkin. “In a way, it's impressive. We were all so much stronger than him. And all it took to control us was make us so starved of love we'd tear each other apart to win a scrap of his approval.”

Something in Luther rebels at this characterization, at this refusal to look deeper at all the buried pockets of goodness in their father. But her eyes are watering, and he has the sense to keep his mouth shut. “Allison,” he starts, and moves to touch her shoulder.

“No,” says Allison, pulling away. “Enough is enough. I'm old enough to know my own strength now. If I want, I can make the whole world love me. I don't need to waste time pleasing a man who can never be pleased.”

She is staring out the window, and there is a naked hunger in the way she looks at the sky, as though she wants to stretch out her arm and pluck out a star.

“So what next?” asks Luther, knowing the answer already.

“I guess I hop on a bus and rumour myself into a hotel room far away from here,” says Allison.

“But won't you miss this? All the memories we have? All the...” His vision is getting blurry, and he looks away. “I'm just saying, you know...as your...as your brother, maybe you should reconsider. You should stay close to your family. I really think you should.”

“People grow up,” she says. “Their roots stop tying them down. They want to be free.”

“What about...” says Luther, and stops. Instead he says, “What about the rest of us? You can't just abandon the team.”

“Don't you see?” she says. “The others all have one foot out the door already. We're not a team anymore. We haven't been for years.”

It hurts to hear her confirm it. “I don't understand it,” says Luther, feeling powerless as he looks at his hands. “Things used to be so good. We had so much fun together. What happened to all of us?”

“I don't think things were ever good, Luther,” says Allison.

“So you're leaving me behind,” he says. He notices that the locket is absent from her neck. Of course. It doesn't match with her outfit, why would she wear it?

Allison looks him in the eyes. “Luther, if I asked you to come, would you?”

And he realizes that they are at a crossroads, and that one way or another, the next thing he says will change the rest of his life. So he tries to imagine saying yes.

He imagines himself living with Allison—in a hotel room, on a farm, in some cramped apartment. Starting a life as...what, a barista? Or sitting in an office, doing whatever it is people in suits do all day? No missions, no purpose, just treading water from day to day to survive. Watching TV, hearing about bank robberies and terrorist attacks and staying put on the couch. Not the first of forty-three or the first of seven billion, just one in a crowd. Less than normal, because he doesn't know the first thing about being a normal person. How does someone begin to learn how to buy groceries, or pay taxes, or make friends?

He imagines his father alone, in an empty house with none of his children left. Standing by the oak tree, mourning dreams and plans that can never be fulfilled. Because Number One is gone, Number One has betrayed him and left his post. He imagines taking everything Luther was ever taught to want and setting it on fire.

Then he imagines a table at Griddy's, only instead of just Allison, the others are there too. Even Ben and Five. Diego isn't looking at Luther like he wishes Luther had died instead of Ben. He is laughing, bragging about some technique he has mastered, or challenging one of them to a silly childish game. Klaus isn't passed out or stumbling in at six AM or caught trying to make off with the silverware. He is joking around, eyes bright and lucid, or doing some crazy antic that makes everyone laugh. Five is teaching them all about some scientific concept he is studying, cocky as ever. Ben is making a snarky but good-natured comment. He talks to Luther as though he is someone Ben respects, as though Ben doesn't hate him, doesn't blame him. Vanya is quiet, but it is the bright and pleasant silence of a peaceful lake, not of a frozen pond. She is absorbing everything around her instead of shutting it out.

And there are no fights, no barbs designed to inflict as much pain on each other as possible, no walking onward down the hall as he hears someone sobbing on the other side of a door. No empty chairs or overdoses or memorial services or long, icy silences. Everyone is smiling again. They are a family.

And maybe it will never be quite how it was. But it was once that way, and if he hangs onto all the shattered pieces he might be able to glue back together an imperfect image of it. It's better than losing them forever.

“Let's wait,” he says. “It's not the time.”

“Of course that was your answer,” says Allison, and she touches his hand. “It was a long shot to hope for another one.”

They are shivering as they head home in the cold winter night, carrying the leftover food. When they get back, the house is silent. Luther walks Allison to her bedroom. Right before she opens the door, she stares at Luther for a long time. Allison's expression is bittersweet. “Goodbye, Luther,” she says.

In the morning, their father is more furious than Luther has seen in a long time. Armed with earplugs, he barges into Number Three's room. But when they check inside, she is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it this far, then thank you, and I'm assuming you like at least a few of the themes in this fic or else you would have noped out by now. In this case, I just want to recommend The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I just reread it, and it has a few similar elements (emotional repression, misguided loyalty, unreliable narrators, nostalgia). I don't know if it subconsciously influenced me, but regardless, it's a great book!
> 
> At the beginning of Episode 4 when Luther lives alone, there is a voice on the loudspeaker instead of a siren announcing a mission. Clearly, it's because Allison broke it here!


	7. UMBRELLA ACADEMY MISSION #294

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full content warnings at the end, but this is pure gloom and doom. :/ I blame the source material for hamstringing me.

**BRIEFING:**

“Master Luther?”

In his tiny bed, he lies with his knees bent and his head buried under the pillow. He should say something to Pogo. He can't.

A knock again. “Master Luther, your mother has made supper for you.”

The door edges open—instinctively, Luther yanks the cover above his chest. It's too small to do much good.

When Pogo looks at him, the old ape's eyes are gentle in a way that gets under Luther's skin. It's too close to pity, and nothing about Luther should ever be pitied.

“Forgive me for my impertinence,” says Pogo, “but it might do you some good to have fresh air.”

Luther recoils at the thought. “I'm fine indoors.”

Pogo sighs. He seems to be debating whether to speak.

“It may feel as though no one knows what you're going through,” Pogo says at last. He enters the bedroom. “But you are not alone.”

At that, Luther almost laughs. “What do you call this if it's not alone?” he says, with more bitterness than Pogo deserves.

Pogo looks down. “I miss your brothers and sisters too,” he says. “More than you can imagine. But there's no point clinging to what is already lost. Life must go on.”

Luther wants to ask, what life? He has no friends, no family, no job, no girlfriend. And now he doesn't have himself either. Most days he sits in his room and stares at the wall. Everything about him is misshapen, broken—he feels more like a tumour than a person. Of course, he's grateful to his father for saving him, but sometimes he thinks all the pieces worth saving were destroyed in the accident.

Pogo stands beside Luther's bed, and Luther shrinks inward, trying to make himself as small as possible. “Master Luther, you know you cannot hide in your room forever.”

“Please just leave me,” says Luther, covering his face. “You don't know how it feels to...you don't know. No one could ever understand.”

“Master Luther,” says Pogo, “I am speaking as perhaps the one person on earth who most understands.”

Luther looks up. A wave of guilt hits him. “I'm so sorry,” he says. “I never thought—”

“It's quite all right.” Although Pogo's back is hunched with age, there is a reserved dignity to his posture.

“Pogo,” says Luther, “how did—how did you...adjust?”

The old butler is lost in thought. “For me, it was not so much a matter of adjusting,” he says. “One day, I opened my eyes to see your father standing above me, and I felt... _more_. As though the curtains to a dark room had been opened, and brilliant sunlight was streaming in. Suddenly, my mind was bursting with ideas, and I could see the world in much clearer detail than I'd ever known possible. When someone gives you such a precious gift, how can you not feel gratitude? How can you not offer your life in return?” He pauses. A conflicted, almost remorseful expression crosses his face.

Pogo continues. “The realization...that I wasn't normal, was in fact what some might find repulsive—that came later. When I interacted with the outside world and noticed glimpses of...shall we say, darker emotions in the eyes of those who beheld me. Of course, I knew the fault lay with them for being closed-minded. But that is not to say it wasn't painful.”

Luther feels a tug in his chest. “I didn't know,” he says, and he almost wants to reach out one of his swollen purple hands toward Pogo. Instead he keeps the monstrous things hidden beneath the blanket.

“There's no need to feel guilt, Master Luther,” says Pogo. “I learned to be at peace with my deformities. You can too. In this house, our kind has a place. Your father is not a perfect man, but he accepts us for who we are.”

Luther is quiet for a long time. Then he says, “All right, I'm coming.” But Pogo is still in the room, and Luther can't bring himself to go that far. So he adds, “I'll join you in a bit.”

“I'm very happy to hear that, Master Luther,” says Pogo.

Once Luther is alone, he grabs the pair of shears on his desk. Fighting back a wave of nausea, he tries to trim the coarse body hair sprouting wildly all over his arms and face. After twenty minutes, he has barely made a dent. He gives up and reaches for the pile of old T-shirts whose sleeves and necks he has cut open so they can fit over his torso.

It's strange, Luther thinks as he dresses, how the outside shapes the inside. He has never considered himself to care much about his appearance. His relationship to his body has always been one of function over form. But now he realizes how much it mattered, that his reflection meshed so well with his image of Number One. Tall and golden-haired and the right kind of broad-shouldered, how a hero should look. He fit the part, so that made it easier to slip into the role until it became him.

All those years ago, when Ben called them monsters—maybe Luther would have believed him, if he'd looked like this.

He opens the closet to see if he can find anything to hide the rest of him. Inside, his old uniforms hang neatly on the rack. From left to right, blazers and pant legs grow longer, as though each spot on the rack is a time capsule of a different point in Luther's life. Here when he was twelve, and he rushed to pull his sweater over his head while the siren clanged in his ears, there when he was fifteen, jacket pressed and tie straightened and hair pomaded as he posed with a sunny grin for photographers. It's strange to think of how he wore each uniform a hundred times, never noticing it grow slowly tighter and shorter, until one day Mom hung it back on the rack and he never took it down again. He stares at his closet and mourns all the lost versions of himself that he can never recover.

Why did Luther never notice he was handsome? Why did he take it for granted until it was too late?

In the end, he uses his blanket as a shawl to cover his bare arms. He walks down the stairs for what may be the first time in weeks. His footsteps echo in the silence of the vast mansion.

When he is downstairs, he looks around. The entrance hall is empty.

And just for a moment, he imagines their ghosts. Two through Six, twelve years old and standing in a line, awaiting instructions from their father. Fresh-faced and eager, ready to fight whatever the world throws their way. Back when everything was simple. If he looks up the stairs, he can almost believe that at any moment, Klaus will run down, calling after them to wait, he's almost caught up...

Then he makes a decision.

Supper can wait, he thinks. For the first time in months, he has direction. He marches back up the stairs and down the hall, until he reaches his father's study. Luther knocks.

“I am busy,” calls the voice from inside. 

“Dad, it's me,” says Luther. “Please let me in. I need to talk to you.”

There is no answer.

“Dad?”

“Must you interrupt me?”

Luther fights the hurt he feels. “I haven't seen you in over a month,” he says.

His father says nothing, and Luther chooses to take that as permission to enter. He pulls the blanket more tightly around himself.

The study has grown more cluttered over the years with esoteric baubles and contraptions. Whether his father has accumulated more than the space can accommodate or his mind is becoming less organized with age, Luther doesn't know. Where once books were lined in alphabetical order on shelves, now they are piled on the floor. Fossils and organs in jars and gearboxes and ancient artifacts, much of it coated with a fine layer of dust, occupy most of the space on the desk and the carpet. In the free corner of his desk, Father is scribbling notes that Luther cannot decipher, focused on the readings of some strange machine resembling a polygraph.

“You are breaking my concentration,” says Father. He keeps writing.

Normally, Luther would back off, but he is overcome with a sense of urgency. “Dad,” says Luther. “It's important. I need to go on missions again.”

His father stops. Puts down his pen, and lifts his head...away from Luther.

“That would be folly, Number One.”

Luther is deflated, but he presses on. “I'm healed now. Why not?”

“Like this?” says his father, and waves his hand in Luther's direction. “I'm afraid we'd be the laughingstock of the press.”

Luther flinches. Out of nowhere, he thinks, you did this to me. Or maybe he doesn't think it, some malicious spirit implants those words into his brain. And for a moment he almost feels a hot lick of anger flare up alongside it, but then in a flash it's gone, as though it was never there.

“I could do it anonymously,” he says. “Or what if—hear me out—I wore a disguise? Come on, Dad. I can't just sit at home when there are threats to the earth out there.”

For a long time, his father is silent. Then he says, “Number One, do you know why I sent you on missions, growing up?”

Luther is confused. “To...to save the world.”

His father's voice is cold and rational. “In a manner of speaking, yes. But let us be more specific. Why did I send you after bank robbers and art thieves? Surely their crimes, though dastardly, were not world-ending.”

“I...to help people?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” says Father. “Everything was training for the real battle! Your missions were designed to give you practical combat experience. To expose you to a variety of scenarios and teach you all how to function as a team. I hoped that by starting so young, you'd all be ready when the day came. And you, Number One, were to be my perfect leader. That's why I gave you more opportunities to shine, but also why I pushed you so hard.”

“So...are you saying none of it mattered?” Luther thinks of all the battle plans he has poured his heart into, all the rules they were made to follow, the sweat and tears and injuries and close calls, the thousands of hours spent on drills and combat exercises, the bodies. He feels sick. “That can't be true. Some of it must have. Or else what was the point of everything?”

“I never said there weren't any secondary benefits,” says Reginald. “Maintaining law and order. Fostering strong morals in today's wayward youth. Generating good publicity for the Umbrella Corporation. Propping up puppet states amenable to arms deals and low corporate taxation rates for foreign investors by undermining threats to their sovereignty through false flag attacks. But all of that was just a means to an end. The more tools and resources at my disposable, the higher the odds of _winning_. Tell me, if you had over a hundred years to stop an apocalypse, would you not use the time to ensure that when the moment comes, the deck is as stacked as possible in your favour?”

Much of this is flying over Luther's head, and he suspects he prefers it that way. “I can still do...all that stuff. Nothing has changed.”

“Number One,” says his father, still not looking at him, “to be in the final battle, you must be alive.”

Luther blinks. “Excuse me?”

“My boy, I'm afraid I miscalculated. Perhaps Five should have been my proverbial canary in the coal mine. But I assumed that was a character defect on his part. With your powers, the risk to any of you on an actual mission seemed infinitesimal. Of course, Six was a tragedy, but I told myself it was simply poor luck. But now we've nearly lost you as well, and that would just not do. Infinitesimal risks become large when taken an infinite number of times. I should have considered that.” His father grows contemplative, almost regretful. “Instead, I let greed blind me. The day was growing so close, you see. After waiting for so long, I simply lost my patience. I became too...emotional.”

One detail catches Luther's attention. “Dad,” he says, with a growing lightness, “are you saying you don't want me to die?”

For the first time, Sir Reginald looks directly at Luther. His eyes are flat and expressionless. “No, Number One,” he says. “I do not want you to die.” And then he looks back down and starts writing in his notebook again.

A big grin spreads on Luther's face. This is the happiest he has been in months. He wants to laugh out loud, to jump for joy. Luther is feeling vindicated. All those years ago, his brothers and sisters made fun of Luther for believing in their father. So many times, he's heard the same sentiment. Dad doesn't care if we live or die. Dad would be relieved, if anything, to have more peace and quiet. Dad will keep sending us on missions until we're all in body bags, and then he'll file us away as failed experiments and move on. Wouldn't they regret abandoning Luther, if they could hear Dad now? It should have been obvious what his father was willing to do for him after the serum, but here is the proof Luther always needed. His father wants him alive. There is goodness in the man after all.

Then it occurs to him that he's seen fathers in movies. Not once has anyone needed to ask the question about them. For just a moment, he feels a profound loss for a life he's never known. But it's too late now. That bed is made.

“Father,” says Number One, “send me on a mission! Please. I think this body is even stronger than my old one. I'll be okay. I promise I won't get hurt again. The world needs me.”

His father sets down his pen and raises his head. He is looking at Luther strangely. Like Reginald is truly seeing him for the first time, and is uncertain he's comfortable with what is there.

“Luther,” he says, “wouldn't you prefer to rest?”

“I can't rest. You made me for this!” Number One is starting to panic. Just a hair further, and he might get on his knees. “I know I can do this. Please, Dad. I'm begging you. I'm supposed to be Number One. I can't just stop. What else am I supposed to do? Where do I go like this?” His voice spikes in pitch. “I know I'm still needed. You can't just tell me I'm not needed anymore.”

There is a long silence.

“I see,” says Sir Reginald at last. “In that case, have you ever wanted to visit the moon?”

**THE MISSION:**

The moon is not quite all it's cracked up to be.

Luther had eight years to become accustomed to being alone. But he begins to appreciate the difference between alone in a house, where Pogo is just down the hall, and alone on a world.

At first, he feels better than he has since before the accident. Having a purpose breaks him out of his funk, revives something in him he thought was dead. The moon outpost has fallen into disrepair, so in the beginning, he is busy. Every day brings a new challenge. The fuel cells need to be replaced, the long-inactive solar panels reinstalled, the oxygen canisters refitted.

The landscape is cold and barren, but after so many years inside Sir Reginald's stuffy mansion, it's almost refreshing to be somewhere completely alien and full of open space. His breath is taken away the first time he sees the horizon sparkle like white glass during a lunar sunrise. And in the low gravity, his body is no longer heavy and cumbersome. He can pretend he's still human.

Whenever he has free time, he parks himself in a chair outside and waits. At any moment, the enemies his father has warned him of might appear.

Then two weeks pass, and all that is left to do is basic maintenance. His father also told Luther to track his observations while he was here, but there is not much to observe. Nothing ever changes.

He starts to wonder what to do with himself. Luther thrives on routines and structure, but for the past twenty-five years, most of his have been designed by his father.

So he sends a message home. “Dad, what should I do while I wait?”

Then after far too long, when Luther begins to grow restless, to wonder when he'll hear another human voice, the message comes back. “Perhaps you can study the growth rates of different plants in low gravity.”

And Luther can roll with that. He's not really a scientist, but he's picked up a few tricks from living with Sir Reginald. Father sends up a packet of seeds with his next shipment of supplies, and Luther teaches himself how to grow hydroponic plants. He installs lamps that mimic the effect of sunlight during the moon's two-week nights. He measures the plants several times a day, diligently taking notes. After the experiment ends, he decides to adopt the tallest one.

Then he asks his father what he thought of his research, and if he has any other requests.

Father says, “I shall take a look at it soon. Perhaps you can study lunar regolith.”

Luther is confused, since that's very broad. But he asks for textbooks on material science, and he learns about cohesion and friction; he tests the rate of power consumption of his lunar rover over the moon's soil, both on level ground and on an incline. He reads studies on lunar regolith and thinks, perhaps he can investigate if it's possible to extract oxygen from it. Perhaps he can measure its properties of thermal insulation. It's new, having this freedom to make his own studies, to choose a hypothesis and decide on the variables to control. It reminds him of when his father let him plan mission tactics for the first time. This is a good sign. Dad must be gaining more faith in Luther's abilities.

When that is done, Luther sends it home. He asks his father for feedback. He asks what comes next. There is no reply.

So after a few months, Luther decides to make his own experiments—on the lunar magnetic field, on volcanic debris, on the atmospheric composition. He hopes that will impress Father. He records the temperature and weather each day. He records every inch he sees of the moon's topography. He records his own state of mind, in long, rambling letters that he jots down mostly for himself. He bundles them with field samples—anything from silt to unusual rocks he thinks his father might like as gifts. And he sends them off like prayers in packages home, to the only man left in his universe.

Soon Luther has a routine again. The base operates on a twenty-four hour cycle. At 06:00 the lights turn on. He wakes, he waters Ben, he does one hundred push-ups and two hundred crunches and then jumps rope for twenty minutes. He eats a soy paste pouch for breakfast at 7:00. Then he suits up and does his rotation of the base—replenishing fuel, checking the payload, inspecting that the thermal control and gravitational and ventilation systems are in working order. Lunch is at 12:00, and the afternoons are spent on scientific inquiry. After supper at 17:00, he cleans his living quarters, then at 19:00 he takes time to read or write or study whatever topic is pertinent to his research, until lights out at 22:00.

He goes back to bed, and asks himself, is that it? But then he tells himself, that's enough, and then he does it all again.

And the routine works. Most of the time, or at least some of the time. Because there are times when he steps outside, and instead of white glass, he sees a graveyard strewn with bone dust. When he is plunged into the darkness of a lunar night, and at the realization that the closest person is two hundred and forty thousand miles away, he is seized with the kind of terror a small child feels at monsters under the bed. When his supplies dwindle until he is only a couple of days away from dehydration or asphyxiation or hypothermia, and he looks at the sky doubting that the next shipment will ever arrive. When the lights go on at 06:00, and he doesn't water Ben and do fifty push-ups and two hundred stomach crunches. Instead he lies in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling of his bunker and realizing no one will ever sleep beside him. When the silence chokes out everything but the sound of his own thoughts. Then he looks at himself, really looks. And he smashes the furniture in his tiny bunker, tears at his hairy, wrinkled flesh until it bleeds, lets himself deteriorate in a way that is only possible when completely alone.

But he always snaps out of it in the end. He knows that if he does not cling to the structure he has created, he will fall apart.

Sometimes he looks up at the Earth, a vivid burst of colour in his greyscale surroundings, and he imagines what his brothers and sisters are doing. He misses them with a hunger that shocks him. But perhaps it's for the best. He imagines Allison seeing him like this, and thinks this might be where he belongs, hiding in the shadows.

“Is it enough?” Luther asks now and then, in the letters he sends with his research. “Can I come home yet?” When there is no answer, he starts scrawling it on the outside of his packages. He's noticed that always gets a faster response. And occasionally, his father will write back: “The danger to Earth is still out there. Why don't you send back more field samples?” So Luther obeys. He stays at his post, because he's needed there.

Most of the time, Pogo keeps him updated, but now and then his father will check on him. Luther sends thousands of words, and his father responds with fourteen or fifteen. And it's nothing new, Luther shouting at the top of his lungs into a cave, hoping to hear an echo in return.

It's not all bad. Sometimes he discovers gentle sides of himself he never knew existed. He learns to build robots, to grow potatoes, to sew clothing, and he finds that it's nice to devote himself to a craft that isn't killing a man in a hundred different ways. He writes pretentious poetry about comets and solar flares that Diego would tear him to shreds for back on Earth. He asks himself if this is who he would have become, had he never been Number One.

Other times he discovers darker sides of himself. He always thought he was strong, but now he's starting to see how much of that strength was a costume he wore for other people.

One day, after a full year has passed without the company of another human being, it occurs to him that he might be losing his mind. He finds himself seeing faces in clouds of dust, hearing whispers inside his space helmet. He was never a paranoid person, but now he's jumping at every shadow. Sometimes he thinks his plant is talking back to him. Without another witness, he starts to wonder, is he real? Is anything real? Around him is a yawning emptiness that threatens to swallow him up. The closer he gets to that pit, the more he can feel the threads of his sanity fray.

But that's okay. His life has never belonged to himself. One day, when he stares out into the horizon, he knows that a dangerous threat will be there, and he will be the only thing standing between it and the Earth. He can hold himself together with tape and glue until then.

Luther has sacrificed everything else, so what's feeding a few more pieces of his mind and body to his father's ambition?

**DEBRIEFING:**

When Luther was small, he would head into the courtyard and watch the sunrise with his father. Mostly they would sit in silence, Father writing in his notebook or reading a scientific journal. But now and then he would talk, and Luther would listen. He would speak of his research on simian intelligence, of his thoughts on philosophy and art and music, of his gold medals and his Nobel Prizes and his business empire. Occasionally of a woman, although always in veiled terms. And little Number One would not understand much of it, but he would think, this is a great man, and I want to be part of the world he is creating. This is a _good_ man.

One day, his father talked about the future. About the end of the world.

“Our foe is dangerous,” he said. “But if you work hard and follow orders, I know that when the time comes, you can succeed. I've staked the universe upon it.”

And Number One asked, “What happens when it's over?”

His father said, “Then our work will be done.”

Number One asked, “Where will I go?”

“That's a strange question,” said his father. “Wherever you want. It shan't be my concern any longer.”

And Number One said, “I don't want to be anywhere else.”

Dad stared off into the distance. Then without turning his head, he said, “I'm happy to hear it.”

Five words can carry a lot of weight. To the right person, they can overcome a thousand insults, or a thousand “leave me alone”s, or a thousand clipped “again”s as Luther collapses and begs his father to let him stop, he's been training for hours and his hands are bleeding and it hurts all over. They can be given meaning they were never intended to have.

Father must be happy because he enjoys my company, Number One thought. What other explanation is possible?

Now Luther can come up with plenty, as he stares at four years of his life buried underneath the floorboards.

There is a difference, he thinks, between being hurt by accident by someone who loves you and being hurt on purpose by someone who doesn't. You can put up with all kinds of torture from someone you convince yourself means well. It feels like the worst stab in the gut, having that trust shattered. Luther always knew his father could be cruel and distant. But it never occurred to Luther that he didn't matter to his father at all. Everyone knows that fathers love their children.

Some people don't need reasons. But Luther does, even if they're paper thin. Once upon a time, if he squinted, he could see all the pieces of his life line up perfectly. Every part of his story was a carefully placed stone in an ancient monument, one that would only light up on the solstice, when the sun is in just the right place in the sky. And now the pieces don't fit together any more. He tries to align them in so many different configurations, but none of them look right.

Is he a bad leader? Is this a punishment he's earned? Is it his fault for getting hurt, for letting the others leave? Or has his father been the monster everyone says he is all along? The questions eat him alive. Because sometimes, Luther thinks he has it all figured out, but then he latches onto one detail that sends him into a tailspin again. If his father never loved him, then why did he save Luther's life? Why did he ever take him to the courtyard? Why did he show him kindness on the night Ben died? But then if he did love him, why did he lie to Luther about everything that was important? Why did he send him to rot alone on the moon? Why did he always put him down and shut him out and push him past the brink? It doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense anymore, and his mind is spinning in circles. There must be some key fact he's missing.

He's spent almost thirty years looking at his father's face, scrounging for hints that Luther was a son to him, all while his father was too focused upon the horizon to notice. When you stare at anything for that long, pretty soon you can find enough evidence for whatever it is you want to see. And now Luther revisits that day long ago, with those five words that meant the world to him as a child. Perhaps his father lied. Perhaps his father was only happy because Luther was useful to him then. Or perhaps it never happened that way at all, and Luther has built a life on a false memory.

The worst part is knowing it's his own fault. He can't say he was a prisoner. The signs were all there. There is a life where he could have been free, and instead he chose this one. No one in the world would ever pity Luther, except for himself.

Luther has given and given until all that remains of him is a shadow. Knowing that he was duped is more than a harsh truth. It is a truth that could drive someone insane.

And in that moment, he thinks of what he has thrown away, what he can never get back—all because he wanted to be loyal, to be good—and he needs to escape. He wishes he could trade his life in for someone else's, but the next best thing is for oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: body dysmorphia, self-harm, self-hatred, depression, hallucinations, isolation, mental breakdowns--otherwise known as "the parts of Luther's character that people normally write about." Let me know if I missed something.
> 
> Not going to lie, there were moments writing this where I was extremely tempted to throw up my hands and make the entire text of this mission "The moon sucks," and the debriefing "DaD sEnT mE tO tHe MoOn." (But on the plus side, I actually got to use an old school design project on lunar rovers for something!) On that note, remind me never to write a "Five survives the Apocalypse" fic. It's so hard to make someone sitting alone and being miserable compelling.
> 
> The next chapter is more of an epilogue. I swear it won't be as bleak, because I'm starting to feel bad inflicting this on people!


	8. HARGREEVES FAMILY MISSION #1

**BRIEFING:**

The courtyard is strewn with towers of rubble and ash, but set against the backdrop of the deep red sunset, the wreckage looks almost beautiful. Luther feels a bittersweet mix of emotions churning inside him.

“Everyone get over here,” Five calls out. “We need to talk about the mission.”

They begin to gather in a disorganized circle.

“Ring,” says Vanya, giggling. “Riiiiiiing.”

“God, I hated that bell,” says Allison, with a traumatized shudder. “Don't remind me.”

“So did I,” says Vanya. “You don't know how it felt to be trying to study or practice and then hear it blaring in my ears for half an hour. As if I needed a reminder you were going on missions without me.”

Diego's face twitches, and he looks as though he is about to blurt something out, but then he presses his lips together and takes a deep breath. He says, “Yeah, I can imagine that must've sucked.”

“Okay,” says Five, “let's plan our—”

“We're not all here,” says Luther. He sighs. Some things never change.

Then they hear laughter.

Klaus is flying through the air. In an awkward position, with his knees bent and his arms clutching onto empty space in front of him, but Luther's mouth still hangs open.

“Look at me,” says Klaus, grinning from ear to ear. “You know how my powers have been getting stronger? Well, turns out I can levitate now!” He lurches forward, but finds his balance again.

Luther claps. “That's incredible, Klaus! I'm so proud of you.” Never in a million years could he have imagined the dramatic change in his brother. “You've really been applying yourself.”

“Oh, and that's not all I can do,” says Klaus. With a theatrical flourish, he waves an arm in the air. “Mesdames et messieurs, for my next trick, there is a quarter in my pocket. Watch as I use the power of telekinesis to make it float in midair!”

Nothing happens. He shoots a furtive glance downward.

“As I was saying,” he says, “it would be nice if the quarter in the _front right pocket of my coat_ were to fly right now _.”_ Klaus wobbles in the air. “Well, maybe someone should get a stronger back.” His expression becomes offended. “Stop your whining, I haven't gained that much weigh—aaaaaaaaargh!”

He falls forward. Instead of landing, his body hovers a few inches above the ground.

“Yeah, well, this would have worked if you weren't in such bad shape,” says Klaus. “I can't believe I almost got Luther to believe something that ridiculous.”

Ben appears on the ground for a few seconds, and now Luther sees Klaus is sprawled on top of him. “Wow,” Ben says. “Telling the dead guy he's in bad shape. You sink to new lows every day.”

“I do my best,” says Klaus.

Ben disappears, and Klaus falls through him.

Luther wants to ask Ben if death and constant exposure to Klaus changed him, or if he was secretly this much of a smartass all along. But Luther is still tiptoeing around anything related to the incident. He can finally bring himself to make eye contact with Ben now. Maybe one day he'll work up the nerve to apologize.

“Can we get on with it?” says Five. He scowls, taps his foot anxiously. “We have more important things to worry about than Klaus's attention issues.”

“You're so cute when you're mad,” says Klaus. He moves to pinch Five's cheek, but Five immediately teleports to the other side of the circle.

“Right, the mission.” Luther takes a step out of the circle to address them, instinctively straightening his back and squaring his massive shoulders—then stops. For half a second, tension flickers in the air. It is almost imperceptible to someone who has not grown up with them. But he can sense old habits reemerging, the reversion to long-entrenched family dynamics. To Luther, it is like slipping into a worn pair of shoes from his childhood—familiar, almost comfortable, but no longer his size.

Then Luther steps back into the circle. “Anyone have ideas?” And the atmosphere becomes light again.

“We need to take the Commission by surprise,” says Diego. “A sneak attack on their home turf is our best chance.”

“I agree with Diego,” says Luther.

Diego smirks at this. “Do you.”

“Are you guys sure this is the only way?” asks Vanya. “This is dangerous. If we head to the Icarus Theatre, we can still stop me from—”

“The Commission will be waiting for us there,” says Luther. “We'd be walking into a trap.”

Vanya's voice ices over. “I can take the Commission,” she says. “I know how to control my powers now, if you haven't noticed.”

Luther says, “Right,” and shuffles his feet. Things are still frosty between them.

“It doesn't matter if you can take them, Vanya,” says Five. “They have briefcases again. The Commission will keep hitting us. It's not over until we take it to their headquarters.”

“Am I missing something here?” asks Klaus. “If Vanya convinces the other Vanya to skip the whole brutal killing spree this time around—sorry, no offence—”

“None taken,” says Vanya, with a resigned sigh.

“Glad to hear it,” says Klaus. “As I was saying, can't we just solve everything by talking her down before she switches to White Violin mode? Even if the mooks are waiting for us again, they were no sweat off Ben's back last time. Not that he sweats.”

“It's not that simple, Klaus,” says Five. “The Commission can manipulate time and space. They can travel to the past and make it so the chain of events that leads to us winning never happened. So we need to cut them off at the head. And that means a full-scale invasion.”

“All right,” says Allison. “So how do we get inside?”

“I know,” says Diego. “What if we break in through the windows?”

Allison chuckles and shakes her head. “Diego, why do you have an obsession with breaking windows?”

“No,” says Five, with a pained expression, “we are not breaking any windows. It's a building outside of time and space. Do you really think _windows_ are the problem—”

“Never mind infiltrating the building,” says Luther. “How do we even find it? I know the Handler is gone, but Five might need to bait someone else from the—”

“That won't be necessary,” says Five. “I've been working on the equations. I think I've solved for the location of the convergence point for all timelines. My hypothesis is that this should be right in the centre of the Commission's headquarters. All I need is to open a wormhole, and it should bring us to—”

“And you couldn't tell us this earlier?” says Luther.

“I didn't think it was relevant,” says Five. “And you wouldn't have understood anyway.”

“Five, you need to stop doing that,” says Allison. “I thought we were all trying to avoid acting in the ways that got us into this mess in the first place.”

Five gives a sardonic grin. “Fine, next time I'll give you a crash course on string theory, the curvature of space-time, and integration over four-dimensional surfaces so you can keep up with me. Sound good?”

Allison takes a deep breath and looks at the sky as though she is asking a higher power for strength.

“So what is this wormhole?” asks Vanya.

“I use my powers to create another portal,” says Five. “Since I'm aiming for the junction between all timelines rather than a particular time period and location, it's easier to be precise. The math has a lot more zeroes.” He smirks. “If our luck holds, when we come out of that portal, we'll find ourselves in the underbelly of the Commission.”

“Whoa, hold up,” says Klaus. “When you say 'precise,' can you give us, like, a ballpark? Precise as in within six feet or six decades? Because last time—”

“I saved your lives, in case you don't remember,” says Five. “It wasn't the time for precision. And I got you back here eventually, didn't I?”

“Four jumps later,” Diego mutters under his breath, but Five pretends not to hear.

“We're getting sidetracked,” says Allison. “What's our plan when we get there?”

“We need to destroy all the Apocalypse files, anything on Vanya or Dad,” says Five. “I know where they keep the records. This way they'll be flying blind if they try to modify the timeline again. But when that's done, we need to cripple the organization permanently. We do as much damage as we can, then take out whoever's in charge.”

“Agreed,” says Luther. “So who's in charge anyway?”

“I...don't know,” admits Five.

“You serious?” asks Diego. “Didn't you work for them?”

“They didn't exactly have a culture of transparency,” he says, with more than a little defensiveness.

“Then I guess we just...look around,” says Allison. “The man or woman behind the curtain should be there, right?”

Five looks away. “Uh...I don't know that either.”

Allison gapes at him. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, there's probably an actual person in charge,” says Five. Then in a hurried voice, “Or maybe they're gods. Or possibly aliens.”

“Oh, only gods?” says Klaus. “Well, that's a relief.”

“Maybe this is hopeless,” says Vanya, staring at the singed grass.

“Don't count us out yet,” says Luther. “We have Ben who can also unleash gods.” Klaus clears his throat. Luther adds, “And Klaus who can unleash Ben.” The way Klaus beams in response makes Luther grateful he restrained the urge to berate Klaus for making it about himself.

“We also have Vanya as our secret weapon,” says Allison. “She's more powerful than the rest of us put together, and the Commission has no idea she's on our side now.”

Vanya blushes, but a small smile plays upon her lips.

“The seven of us together are unstoppable,” says Five. “Vanya alone could turn the building to rubble. The Commission doesn't stand a chance.”

“I'll try not to blow up more than the building this time,” says Vanya ruefully. Allison gives her hand a sympathetic squeeze.

“Then it's settled,” says Diego. “Let's go.”

Luther sighs. “So to recap,” he says, “our plan is that we walk in, blow things up, and see what random chaos happens?”

“Isn't that how it always ends up anyway?” says Ben, making Luther jump. “I say we save time and cut out the middle steps.” Then he vanishes again.

Vanya hesitates, fidgeting. “Is there anything else I should know?” she says. “I've never...” Her voice quivers. “This...this is all new for me.”

“You'll be fine,” says Five, giving her a reassuring smile. “If a bunch of traumatized children could do it, so can you.”

“Just try not to run out in the open while people are shooting at you,” says Allison.

Vanya nods. Although Luther spots a tear running down her cheek, she is smiling. There is something in the way she stands, in how her her head is upright and her eyes are bright and lively and her cheeks are full of colour, that makes her seem in her element for the first time in her life. Like a mermaid who has just discovered the ocean. Luther is touched, but he knows to leave her alone.

Some wounds don't heal overnight. But Luther is patient. They are all trying to close a lifetime of distance between them. He can wait a few months.

“It's time,” says Five. He pulls out a notepad, then flips it to a page that is covered from margin to margin with equations scrawled in barely legible chicken scratch. Luther has studied just enough math on the moon to suspect that it's all gibberish, but he says nothing. Five furrows his brow in concentration.

There is a flash of blue, then a gust of wind. Everyone gasps. A vortex appears, like the one Five came from on the day of their father's funeral.

Five stares at the portal for a long time, reflective.

“You know, I used to think these missions were a waste of time,” says Five. “But it's funny. After forty-five years, it almost feels like coming home.”

He is the first to step through the portal. Vanya takes a deep breath, then follows close behind.

Diego turns to Klaus. “C'mon, bro—or should I say bros.”

Klaus gives a fist bump to Diego, then another to the empty air. “Let's roll.”

They cross the threshold of the portal.

Allison turns to Luther. “Are you ready?” she asks. And Luther needs to think about his answer.

After today, nothing will be the same. Together, they are standing on the cusp of a beginning—or an ending. Maybe they'll defeat the Commission and save the world. Or maybe they'll emerge from the portal as toddlers, or as drooling idiots, their minds scrambled. Maybe they're on a suicide mission, and they'll die in the bowels of the headquarters, inking the deaths of seven billion people permanently into the timeline.

And even if they win, maybe it will never be quite how it was. Luther treasures this messy harmony while it lasts, but he knows how fragile it is. None of them have anything in common aside from shared misery. After thirteen years as strangers, a few weeks of being forced together out of necessity might not be enough to heal this family. There are too many bad memories, too many unforgivable things they've said and done to each other. Sometimes it's easier to let things fall apart than to hold on.

Luther has no idea what comes next, nor what to do with himself when this is over. He's never been much for imagining how things could be—after all, he's spent thirty years trying to see the good in the way things were. Now he's staring at a blank page. He might be too stunted and broken to write his own story, and he's not sure if anyone will stick around for long enough to teach him how.

But at least now they are all writing the story together. For once, Luther has a family—one where love is a choice and not just an obligation. And even if it'll end after this mission, that's more than he could say for a long time.

“As ready as I can be,” says Luther.

They step through the portal, leaving Number One behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks! Thank you to anyone who's made it all the way to the end. An extra thank you to anyone who left kudos and comments, since it was nice to have reassurance people were actually reading this. <3


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